Toyota, NTT to invest $3.3 billion to develop AI platform for avoiding road accidents

Toyota Motor and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) plan to invest a total 500 billion yen ($3.27 billion) by 2030 into an infrastructure and software platform using artificial intelligence to reduce traffic accidents.

The automaker and telecommunications firm said in a joint statement on Thursday they want to develop a mobility AI platform that uses large amounts of data to support driver assist technology, aiming to have a system ready by 2028.

The joint push comes at a time when Japanese automakers are facing pressure to step up their efforts in the growing autonomous driving market, which is increasingly dominated by Tesla and Chinese firms.

Toyota and NTT said they hope the platform will help with things such as preventing accidents caused by poor visibility in urban areas, supporting automated driving services and making it easier to merge on expressways.

Their goal is to make the system available not just for themselves but for other industry players, the government and academic partners who want to reduce traffic accidents to zero, targeting widespread adoption from 2030 onwards.

Toyota and NTT first partnered in 2017 to develop technology for 5G-connected cars and formed a capital tie-up as part of a smart city project in 2020.

Last November, NTT said it planned to test driverless vehicle technology with Toyota as early as 2025 and invest in a U.S. startup developing self-driving systems.

Toyota established an autonomous driving technology unit in 2021 to invest in and develop mobility with AI.

The unit, now known as Woven by Toyota, is also developing an automotive software platform, Arene, and building a testing site named Woven City for mobility-related systems and services in Shizuoka prefecture, west of Tokyo.