A new partnership between universities in the U.S. and Japan backed by $110 million from tech corporations aims to boost advancements in artificial intelligence.
The agreement will establish research partnerships between the University of Washington in Seattle and the University of Tsukuba in Japan, as well as between Carnegie Mellon University and Keio University.
NVIDIA and Amazon are each putting $25 million behind the new collaboration. Other backers include Arm, Microsoft, and nine Japanese companies.
The College of Engineering at the UW will lead an interdisciplinary team that will focus on AI-related research, entrepreneurship, workforce development, and social implementation. The UW will split $50 million with the University of Tsukuba. The funding will support research awards, post-doctoral and doctoral students, an undergraduate summer research program, and an entrepreneurship bootcamp program.
Work areas may include healthcare, robotics, climate change, and atmospheric science.
“This is an exciting effort that brings together the talents and expertise of cutting-edge, world-class universities,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement. “Advancements in AI are happening at a breakneck pace. This collaboration will help provide the research and workforce training for our regions’ tech sectors to keep up with the profound impacts AI is having across every sector of our economy.”
The agreement was announced in Washington D.C. on Wednesday as part of Prime Minister Kishida’s visit to the U.S. this week. Kishida and President Biden in 2022 committed to advance U.S.-Japan science and technology cooperation.
Seattle-area tech giant Microsoft separately announced Tuesday that it is investing $2.9 billion in cloud and AI infrastructure in Japan. Amazon Web Services said in January it would invest around $15 billion by 2027 in Japan.
The UW has another connection with Japan via the UPWARDS program that focuses on semiconductor workforce development in partnership with Micron, Tokyo Electron Limited, and the National Science Foundation.
In 2017, the UW established a U.S.-China graduate tech institute program with Beijing’s Tsinghua University, which included support from Microsoft and the opening of a Global Innovation Exchange building near Seattle.
