The Japanese government recently announced a plan to utilize artificial intelligence technology to combat online manga and animation piracy. According to data from the Tokyo Bureau of Cultural Affairs, there are currently at least 1,000 websites illegally offering free downloads of Japanese manga and animation. These sites are accused of causing losses of billions of dollars to Japan's cultural industry each year. To address this issue, the Japanese government has proposed a pilot program totaling 300 million yen (approximately 2 million USD). This program will implement an image and text detection system, leveraging artificial intelligence technology to surveil the internet.

The Japanese government is vigorously advancing its strategic layout for the chip and artificial intelligence industries. This fiscal year, the government will allocate an additional 1.5 trillion yen (approximately $9.9 billion) in a special budget targeting cutting-edge technology fields such as next-generation chips and quantum computers. This budget is divided into two important parts: 1.05 trillion yen will be used for the research and development of next-generation chips and quantum computers, while 471.4 billion yen will focus on supporting domestic advanced chip production. Notably, the 'moon landing plan' of Rapidus is drawing attention, although details are still pending.

At the recent Gemma Developer Day held in Tokyo, Google officially launched its new Japanese version of the Gemma AI model. This model's performance rivals that of GPT-3.5, but it has a parameter count of only 2 billion, making it very compact and suitable for operation on mobile devices. The newly released Gemma model excels in Japanese processing while also maintaining its capabilities in English. This is particularly important for small models, as they may face 'catastrophic forgetting' when fine-tuning for new languages.

Recently, during the Tokyo Game Show, Falcom's president, Koji Kondo, mentioned in an interview with 4Gamer that the company might consider using artificial intelligence in the future to shorten game localization times. He specifically talked about his views on AI translation, believing that such technology could help quickly translate Japanese games into multiple languages. Image source note: The image is generated by AI, provided by the image licensing service Midjourney. His remarks came after demonstrating a software called ELLA, which aims to assist in game localization.

Recently, 26 prominent Japanese voice actors, including Nakao Ryusei, Yamadera Koichi, Kaji Yuki, Fukuyama Jun, and Nakamura Daiki, formed a group called 'No More Mudan Seisei AI' to oppose the unauthorized use of AI-generated voice acting. The group released a video where Nakao Ryusei expressed his astonishment at his voice being sold without permission and urged listeners to consider voice actors' views on the unauthorized use of generative artificial intelligence. Following this, the other 25 voice actors joined in the call.

According to a report by Kyodo News on the 29th, Japan is facing a serious declining birthrate issue, with the number of marriages in 2023 dropping below 500,000 for the first time, marking a new low in 90 years. To tackle this challenge, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has developed an AI matchmaking software called 'TOKYO Connect,' which was fully launched in September this year. The core feature of this software is its ability to use artificial intelligence for matching. Users are required to complete 110 questions on values and personality traits, after which the AI recommends highly compatible matches. Once matched, users can communicate through the software and arrange offline meetings.

Intel has partnered with Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) to establish the first chip manufacturing R&D center in Japan equipped with Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology. EUV technology is suitable for manufacturing chips at 5nm and below, providing Japanese chip designers with the opportunity to collaborate with AIST and Intel to leverage the latest process technologies and enhance their global competitiveness. The construction of this center is expected to take three to five years, with a total investment of several hundred million dollars, and will serve as a resource for semiconductor manufacturers and materials companies, charging fees. This collaboration will not only help

During a business conference, OpenAI's Japan business head, Yoshinobu Nagatomo, mentioned 'GPT Next' as a metaphorical reference to the next generation of large language models, suggesting that OpenAI's models are evolving exponentially over time. However, OpenAI later clarified that 'GPT Next' is merely a metaphor used to illustrate the concept of model evolution and is not an exact product name or timeline. Nagatomo depicted a transition from the 'GPT-3 Era' in 2021 to the 'GPT Next Era' in 2024 in his presentation.

Tokyo-based AI development company Sakana AI has announced the completion of a $100 million Series A financing round, with investors including NEA, Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, and NVIDIA. Sakana AI focuses on nature-inspired intelligence and model optimization, particularly in evolutionary optimization and sparsity. The partnership with NVIDIA will provide advanced GPU technology support and access to Japanese data centers, aimed at promoting AI research and innovation. Collaboration goals include advancing research and leveraging NVIDIA's infrastructure.

GPT-4, OpenAI's language model, passed the Japanese National Physical Therapist Exam without additional training, achieving an accuracy rate of 73.4%. It excelled in handling pure text questions with an accuracy of 80.5%, but performed poorly in solving practical problems and dealing with questions containing images and tables, with accuracy rates of 46.6% and 35.4%, respectively. The research reveals the limitations of AI in certain areas, particularly in understanding complex contexts and visual information. Despite being trained on English data, GPT-4 still performed effectively when processing Japanese input.

Tokyo-based startup Sakana AI has introduced two new image generation models — Evo-Ukiyoe and Evo-Nishikie. Image from Sakana AI official These models can be found on the Hugging Face platform, with the main purpose of generating Ukiyo-e style art through text or image prompts. As is known, Ukiyo-e is a traditional Japanese art form popular from the 17th to the 19th century, depicting themes such as historical scenes, natural landscapes, and sumo wrestlers. Sakana AI aims to use AI to bring thi

In today's pursuit of efficient and humanized management, Aeon, a large Japanese supermarket chain, has sparked widespread controversy by using AI technology to monitor employee smiles.On July 16, Yahoo Japan reported that Aeon has rolled out an AI system called "Smile-Kun" in 240 stores since July 1. This system analyzes employees' smiles and volume, providing real-time feedback to enhance customer service skills.The Smile-Kun system requires employees to greet it daily, then scores them based

Japanese retail giant AEON has recently introduced a new technology—the AI Smile Monitoring System, aimed at enhancing employee service quality. Developed by Japanese tech company InstaVR, the system, known as "Mr Smile," evaluates service attitude by analyzing over 450 factors including facial expressions, voice volume, and tone. AEON is rolling out this system across its 240 stores in Japan, with plans to standardize employee smiles through this technology to boost customer satisfaction.The s

Recently, the Japanese publishing industry has issued a stern warning about AI-driven search engines, arguing that these emerging technologies are eroding the foundations of the news industry. The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association has stated that AI search engines are exploiting the content of news media without fair compensation, a phenomenon known as "free-riding." This means that AI systems profit from news content without providing support for its creation and the news ecosy

Canadian AI startup Cohere and Japanese IT giant Fujitsu recently announced a strategic partnership to jointly develop a large-scale Japanese language model (LLM) named "Takane". This collaboration aims to provide powerful Japanese language model solutions for enterprises, enhancing the user experience for both customers and employees.Image source: Generated by AI, provided by Midjourney According to the statement, Fujitsu has made a "significant investment" in this partnership. Cohere will leve

In Japan, a revolution in artificial intelligence is quietly emerging. SakanaAI, led by AI heavyweights David Ha and Llion Jones, has just completed a funding round of $127 million, with a strong lineup of investors including Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, and NEA. Founded in July 2023, SakanaAI has quickly become Japan's fastest-growing AI startup due to its unique entrepreneurial vision and top talent.