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| Toyota is investing in emerging AI companies |
Toyota's pioneering venture capital fund is investing in emerging artificial intelligence companies that are helping Japanese automakers improve their day-to-day operations by making supply chain management and robots more visible in the plant.
So far, the Silicon Valley AI Venture Capital Fund, which manages $ 200 million, has invested in 36 startups, including driverless car software company Nauto, plant video analytics firm Drishti and aerospace firm Joby Aviation.
Toyota is the world's largest automaker by auto sales, and many car makers such as Volkswagen are pooling funding for startups to help investors move from AI to driverless cars and gain an advantage in AI.
Founding CEO Jim Adler said in an interview with Reuters that Toyota hopes to own dozens of factories around the world in the hope of quickly sharing profits at one plant with others.
Adler said, if you look at cloud computing, cloud robots, fleet learning, and one robot learns something, the rest of the robots learn it automatically.
Adler, a former missile engineer and entrepreneur at Lockheed Martin, added: Although the fund works closely with the automakers, the fund is largely independent of Toyota Motors as it leverages all investment opportunities to manage the auto industry. The quotient is a necessary process.
He said: Between the outside world of Toyota and the internal world, we can exert an external influence on the company.
This year, the automaker launched Woven Capital, a $ 800 million venture capital fund to invest in companies like the Toyota AI Ventures Fund.