Cooperation between EU and Japan in areas relevant for AI-driven innovation in manufacturing and digital industrial platforms needs to be strengthened and transformed into a long-lasting partnership, enabled by the long-term strategy. Website: https://project.eu-japan.ai/

EU-Japan.AI project aims to establish and stimulate a long-term cooperation between EU and Japan in areas relevant for AI-driven innovation in manufacturing and digital industry, by implementing a platform-based approach to connect all the relevant stakeholders and by promoting them using modern, online-driven awareness approaches.

The project is collecting data about relevant events, project, organizations and opportunities in EU and Japan in the area of AI in manufacturing. These information are published on a web portal, together with other relevant resources useful for connecting partners from both regions and to foster cooperation among them.

Specifically, the project aims to:

• collect and analyze information to generate a comprehensive understanding of the AI and manufacturing ecosystem in Europe and Japan, as well as challenges and motivators for its uptake;
• collect knowledge and experience from practitioners to identify the most pressing issues of manufacturers from all over Europe and Japan and identify the manufacturing applications areas which will benefit the most from AI-driven innovations;
• understand discrepancies and gaps in the whole ecosystem and to assess capability gaps of different organizations;
• analyze policies, incentives, road-maps, previous initiatives, ethical, social and legal issues that could be reliant for future implementation and uptake of AI-driven innovations for manufacturing.

At the beginning of the project, data were collected mostly by experts in the area by desktop research. However, during the project, we have started the development of EUJapan Observatory, which will be automatically collecting and analyzing research papers in the AI-related area, media reports on AI-related activity from global news media, jobs and skills market in the AI-related area, research projects, and open source projects. Our tool is also providing AI policies visualization and analysis for both regions.

Data about relevant events, project, organizations and opportunities are obtained by the desk research. Data used in EUJapan Observatory are partly obtained by outside providers and partly automatically collected by our tools.

Results of the project will be:

• increased research excellence of researchers and companies from EU and Japan in the field of AI for manufacturing as a result of twinning;
• mapping of existing stakeholders, initiatives, road-maps, policies, challenges, and subsidies in the advanced manufacturing sector;
• mutual exchange of information on the respective research programmes and technological results on AI applications for manufacturing.
• increased general public perception and acceptance of artificial intelligence and related modern technologies and its benefits for manufacturing.

Platform for connect relevant stakeholders and by promoting networking ans cooperation is available at: https://www.eu-japan.ai/.