Fujitsu has embarked on a long-term research and co-creation program with the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (Inria). Just one year after the start of their partnership, the two organizations have formally committed to even closer collaboration, reflecting Fujitsu’s commitment to driving digital innovation in France.
This new program combines Inria’s expertise in AI-focused research and development with Fujitsu’s technology. A joint team comprising engineers from Fujitsu in Japan and Inria will work closely together, focused on developing new Artificial Intelligence and machine learning techniques by leveraging advanced mathematics and computing. Artificial intelligence will be deployed to interpret IoT data, to generate insights for customers. The solutions created through this collaboration will be integrated into both Fujitsu’s human-centric Artificial Intelligence platform Zinrai, and Inria’s software.
In March 2017, Fujitsu announced a 50 million Euro investment initiative to work with France’s vibrant digital community to co-create new human-centric intelligent solutions. This initiative aims to develop new services and technologies and is based on collaboration with the French government, higher education and research institutions, as well as start-ups.
Axel Mery, CTO of Fujitsu France, comments: “By combining our respective areas of expertise in a co-creation approach, we aim to improve the technology available to address today’s customer needs. We are leveraging the strong artificial intelligence technology ecosystem in France, with its particular expertise in machine learning and deep learning with the objective of developing innovative solutions for our customers. Since its establishment one year ago, the Fujitsu CoE has successfully collaborated with approximately a third of the local incubated start-ups, initiating more than 30 local projects with French companies and more than ten European projects based on AI, with a focus on developing solutions dedicated to retail and manufacturing sectors.”
Frédéric Chazal, director of research at Inria, says: “Inria is well known both in France and internationally for its work in the fields of artificial intelligence, statistics and machine learning. Our collaboration with a major global IT player such as Fujitsu is a unique opportunity for our research teams to combine their theoretical knowledge with expertise gained in real use cases and industry data.”
