NEC's five different aromas developed through the use of artificial intelligence are displayed at the company in Tokyo. An increasing number of companies are turning to fragrance as a way to foster a sense of unity across corporate groups and promote their corporate brand strategy. By tapping into the sense of smell, which is considered an intuitive and memorable form of sensory stimulation, companies aim to establish a consistent corporate image while creating pleasant workplace environments. Fragrance is also expected to help improve work efficiency. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group has selected a signature scent, dubbed "MUFG Fragrance," as part of its efforts to create a comfortable workplace and strengthen its brand strategy. The chosen scent is a refreshing fragrance reminiscent of a forest.

A campaign for Chinese self-sufficiency in artificial intelligence technology has led to intense local competition and a vicious price war, while export-oriented companies have thrived on surging global demand for infrastructure such as data centers. China's push for global supremacy in artificial intelligence technology is increasingly benefiting companies that supply the rest of the world, with investors favoring such stocks as fierce competition hurts their domestically focused peers. A Bloomberg gauge tracking 30 Chinese technology stocks with the biggest overseas revenue exposure has delivered a return of 36% this year, versus 9% for those more dependent on local sales. A separate measure of the export-oriented firms' outperformance over the other group is set for the strongest-ever reading this year. The contrasting fortunes partly result from Beijing's ambition to build its own AI ecosystem.

SoftBank Group, led by billionaire Masayoshi Son, has committed close to $65 billion to ChatGPT creator OpenAI, making it one of the world's biggest investors in artificial intelligence along with its other investments in the sector. SoftBank Group has drawn more than $20 billion of preliminary demand for what's shaping up to be one of the biggest junk bond deals ever, people familiar with the matter said, as investors rush to capture record yields likely to be offered to help fund the firm's investments in OpenAI. The potential interest reflects early, nonbinding indications from investors and serves as an initial gauge ahead of pricing, which is still expected Thursday, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. SoftBank was seeking to raise the equivalent of more than $11 billion in the deal including a $10 billion dollar part and a €1 billion ($1.1 billion) euro portion, other people said Monday. There's no cap for the size, and no final decisions have been made, they added.

Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group, speaks at the SoftBank World forum in Tokyo in July. SoftBank Group is seeking the equivalent of more than $11 billion in what would be one of the biggest junk bond deals ever, people familiar with the matter said Monday, as billionaire Masayoshi Son's conglomerate ramps up its investments in ChatGPT creator OpenAI. The company is looking to issue $10 billion of dollar securities across three tenors, and €1 billion ($1.1 billion) of euro notes across two maturities, according to the people, who asked not to be identified as the discussions are private. The money will be used in part to fund a follow-on investment in OpenAI expected to close next month, the people said. The deal may price on Thursday, they added.

The world's busiest railway station, located at the heart of Tokyo in Japan, is testing whether mobile robotic rubbish bins can ease the workload of sanitation workers, a rail operator representative said on Friday. Shinjuku Station is a sprawling transport complex with multiple rail firms that serve more than 2.7 million passengers every day, and holds the Guinness World Record for the world's busiest rail station. In a part of the station operated by East Japan Railway, the bins are emptied manually more than 10 times a day -- though the number of wastebaskets has been reduced in recent years for cleanliness and security reasons. JR East is testing three automated bins, each standing just over one metre (three feet) tall and moving at a cautious 20 centimeters per second. "We wanted to test how well something like this can operate automatically and safely in an environment like Shinjuku Station," Shinya Kawamichi, a JR East research official, said.

Imagine a robot designed to install solar panels with much greater speed and precision than a human. The robot is made from expensive materials and powered by a heavy battery that must be recharged every few hours. If the costs of building and operating the robot outweigh the benefits of the clean energy it helps produce, can it really be considered sustainable? In a 2025 article published in, Aude Billard, head of the Learning Algorithms and Systems Lab in EPFL's School of Engineering and Academic director of the Robotics Center, gives precisely this example to illustrate the tension between robotic performance and sustainability. Roboticists, she argues, can no longer ignore the fact that robots use energy-intensive power systems and electronic components made from finite resources.

Waymo has announced that it's coming to Singapore, thereby expanding its presence in Asia and in regions outside of the US as a whole. Over the coming months, its first Jaguar I-PACE vehicles will be arriving on the island nation as the company prepares for future operations. Throughout 2027, Waymo's specialists will manually drive its vehicles on Singapore's streets to map them, and the company will make changes to its system to account for the country's road geometry and weather patterns. Waymo expects to start offering rides to the Singaporean public in 2028 through its own app. The company started testing its driverless cars in Tokyo in 2025, making the sprawling Japanese metropolis its first international location.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son (left) and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attend an event in Tokyo in February 2025. Apollo Global Management is in talks with SoftBank Group about boosting the size of a loan to $9 billion from $5.4 billion to help the Japanese firm finance its investment in AI giant OpenAI. The size of the financing, which is backed by assets in SoftBank's Vision Fund 2, hasn't been finalized, the people said, requesting not to be identified because the discussions are private. Representatives for Apollo and SoftBank declined to comment. Apollo made the so-called net-asset-value (NAV) loan to SoftBank's venture capital fund in 2021 and boosted it by $900 million last year to $5.4 billion.

If you see what looks like an ambulance with a set of flashing lights weaving through Tokyo traffic, it might not be rushing to save a human. GMO Internet Group is unleashing what it calls Japan's first "humanoid ambulance" on the streets of Tokyo this month. A maintenance van designed to make house calls when humanoid robots break down, the ambulance carries diagnostic equipment, spare parts, repair tools and engineers to wherever a robot has stopped working. If a robot can't be fixed at the roadside, there's a spare humanoid on board ready to be subbed in and take over on the spot. Meanwhile, the broken unit is ferried back to GMO's repair base at its Humanoid Lab in Shibuya, Tokyo.

A hint of Fisher-Price about it The new GameCube is displayed at a press preview in Tokyo in August 2001. A hint of Fisher-Price about it The new GameCube is displayed at a press preview in Tokyo in August 2001. The first console I ever bought, it was hyped as a threat to the PlayStation, then mocked as a flop. But now, as it marks its 25th anniversary, it's looked back on with misty-eyed reverence T his week marks the 25th anniversary of the Nintendo GameCube, the first console I ever bought with my own money. I vividly remember getting on the bus after school with a year's worth of savings safely zipped into the pocket of my bag and going to a branch of Currys, where I dumped a bunch of notes, coins and vouchers on the counter to collect my pre-order.