At a recent press conference, Toyota Motor Corporation announced it will establish a new company, Toyota Research Institute Inc. (TRI), as an R&D enterprise with an initial focus on artificial intelligence and robotics.

The headquarters will be located in Silicon Valley near Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, U.S.A. A second facility will be located near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. The new company will begin operations in January 2016.

Toyota believes artificial intelligence has significant potential to support future industrial technologies and the creation of an entirely new industry. To underscore this belief, it is making an initial investment of $1 billion over the next five years, to establish and staff the two initial locations and conduct operations.

The investment is in addition to the $50 million investment over the next five years with MIT and Stanford to establish joint fundamental artificial intelligence research centers at each university.

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