The IMI Colloquium in October was held on October 14, 2020.

The IMI Colloquium in October
Title : Solving Social Challenges with Mathematics and AI
Speaker :Mr. Yoshihiro OHTA (President, Chief Executive Officer Arithmer Inc.)
Place : IMI Auditorium (W1-D-413) (4F, West Zone 1, Kyushu University)
and live-streaming by Zoom

Yoshihiro Ohta, the CEO of Arithmer Inc., gave a talk entitled “Solving Social Challenges with Mathematics and AI”.

The company is founded by Graduate School of Mathematical Science, the University of Tokyo, which is unique in the sense of venture companies from Mathematics. Many mathematicians and physicists involve many projects in Arithmer, and they provide R&D based on AI combined with mathematics through a bunch of domestic and international industry-academia-government projects.

In the talk, Ohta started with introducing their enterprise-expanding processes from the foundation of Arithmer. Later he introduced several major projects in Arithmer, such as 1. recognition of handwriting documents, 2. various diagnoses with the same quality as experts from given frames (e.g. towards quick estimation of insurance), 3. drive-supporting system through the real-time analysis of air flow, 4. voice recognition and natural language processing, 5. big-data processing, 6. instantaneous modeling of human body and organisation, 7. 3D maps and flood damage estimation of broad area with the aid of drone, and 8. control of robots moving like human (e.g. succession of “Takumi”; outstanding professional skills and development of anticancer drugs using radiation). These projects are based on AI technology, while their fundamentals rely on advanced mathematics. Practice and utility are proved in a broad level of social activities including education and administration.

Ohta has emphasised through his talk that incomparably large amounts of budgets, human resources and supplies are required in business scenes, compared with academic research activities, and that the role of mathematics will be eventually large in such scenes. Finally, he also emphasised the importance of academic works on bottom-up issues “from Japan”.

Attendance: Staff 20, Postdoctoral Researchers 5, Students 30