On September 14, 2017, the Minister of State for Science and Technology, Masaji Matsuyama, toured RIKEN’S Center for Advanced Intelligence Project (AIP) in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward.
RIKEN President Hiroshi Matsumoto opened the tour with a brief outline of RIKEN’s centennial events and undertakings. AIP Center Director Masashi Sugiyama followed with an outline of the events leading up to the opening of the center over the past year and explanations of its research projects.
Moving to the discussion space, Minister Matsuyama showed keen interest in the prototype of an AI system to select therapies based on an the individual patient’s unique cancer cell features and a device for extracting the information of individual cells, and listened attentively as the work of the Pathology Informatics Unit was explained to him. He was also shown a poster that was on display that showed highlights of recently published research results and gave brief outlines of the three AIP collaboration centers with corporate partners.
The tour concluded with some time set aside for free discussion. Minister Matsuyama expressed his appreciation and assured those present that the work of AIP was critical to the realization of Society 5.0, Japan’s vision for a “super-smart” digitalized society.
