All the below links and tweets are in English. A test run of a robot using artificial intelligence has begun in Hamamatsu City, central Japan. The robot is designed to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus by identifying people not wearing masks. Norway's Minister for Research and Higher Education Iselin Nybø is visiting Japan, including AISTs Artificial Intelligence R&D Center. NEC Corporation signed an LoI to support R&D activities in the areas of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the proposed India Japan Centre for Artificial intelligence and Robotics (IJCAIR) at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

The Mitsubishi Corporation has set up a joint venture company that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to control on-demand bus services in Japan. The new company, called Next Mobility, has been established by Mitsubishi and the Nishi-Nippon Railroad Company, a major Japanese bus operator. The joint venture will start a one-year trial in April at Island City, in the Higashi-ward of Fukuoka City. In a statement Wednesday, Mitsubishi said that the AI would be used to automatically generate routes, in real time, based on passenger requests that are made through a smartphone app. Deep learning will be used to collate "operational data" on both traffic conditions and passenger destinations.