Toyota invests $1 bn in artificial intelligence in US

Silicon Valley is betting big on artificial intelligence technology, with start-ups sprouting and Google and Facebook pouring vast sums into projects that would teach machines how to learn and make decisions.

Now Toyota is venturing to take its piece of the action.

The Japanese auto giant yesterday announced a five-year, $1 billion research and development effort headquartered in Palo Alto, California. The company plans to build one of the largest research laboratories in Silicon Valley.

Conceived as a research facility bridging basic science and commercial engineering, it will be organised as a new company called Toyota Research Institute.

Toyota would initially start a laboratory adjacent to Stanford University and another near MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Toyota's investment is being compared to earlier research initiatives, such as the Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, created by Xerox in 1970 to help the company compete with IBM.

Xerox could never find a strategy to make it a significant player in computing, though the technologies invented at PARC during the next decade were used by Apple and Microsoft to completely remake the computer industry.

According to commentators, the new effort by Toyota comes as the latest indication of a changing of the guard in Silicon Valley's basic technology research.

According to Toyota Motor Corp president Akio Toyoda, the company would start operations from January 2016, with 200 employees at the Silicon Valley facility near Stanford University.

The investment, which would be spread over five years, comes in addition to a $50 million Toyota announced earlier for artificial intelligence research at Stanford and MIT.

According to Toyota, its interests extended well beyond autonomous driving. The company said, the technology was pointing to a new industry for everyday use, delivering a safer lifestyle overall.