FANUC establishes joint venture

March 15, 2018

Fanuc, Hitachi, and Preferred Networks will establish a joint venture company Intelligent Edge System on April 2, 2018.

The company aims to develop real-time control systems for machine tool, robots, and industrial machinery using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

After verifying the business feasibility and formulating a business plan, the companies plan to develop actual systems.

Each of the three companies invested 10 million yen. The president will be Yutaka Saitou, the vice president of Hitachi. He will retire from Hitachi on March 31, and became vice president of Fanuc on April 1.

“We expect the joint venture’s work to be positive factor in the development of FIELD System,” said Yoshiharu Inaba, the chairman of Fanuc.

Toshiaki Higashihara, the CEO of Hitachi, said ” We hope that the joint venture will contribute to the advancement of industrial and social infrastructure by developing and providing world-leading systems.” Toru Nishikawa, the president of Preferred Networks said “we want to accelerate the development and provision of innovative technologies and create a larger trend.”