One of the objectives of the EU-Japan.AI project is to provide an overview of the overall ecosystem in Europe and Japan including stakeholders in the manufacturing sector utilising AI technologies. The outcome is a comprehensive ecosystem map that is provided on the EU-Japan.AI platform. It is the result of a broad desk research and literature review including extensive data collection and analysis.

To support the cooperation between the EU and Japan, the EU-Japan.AI project aims to develop tools, content and showcase materials as well as elaborate a multidimensional matchmaking framework based on a long-term strategic cooperation plan. One of the tasks is to collect and analyse information to generate a comprehensive understanding of the AI and manufacturing ecosystem in Europe and Japan. To this end, the EU-Japan.AI consortium partners conducted a broad desk research including a stakeholder collection to provide an overview of the overall ecosystem and stakeholders in the manufacturing sector and related AI-innovation applications.

EU-Japan.AI ecosystem map

The initial result of the stakeholder collection is a comprehensive ecosystem map. The stakeholder collection includes manufacturing companies, universities, private and public research organisations, networks, SMEs and LEs, public actors and others. In addition, the partners collected relevant events, webinars, conferences, expos and summits in both the EU and Japan. Furthermore, the research includes an analysis of related existing projects, ethical, social and legal issues, pan-European and Japanese initiatives, challenges, requirements, policies, investments and other aspects of AI in the manufacturing ecosystem in both regions. Finally, the collection includes a list of opportunities in academia and in the manufacturing industry such as upcoming funding, tenders and grants. It helps to understand how AI is being used in the international manufacturing context within various regions, as well as to identify potential benefits and collaboration opportunities. Thus, it will enable the EU-Japan.AI project to reach a broader specialised audience from both the EU and Japan and effectively engages all relevant actors in the field of AI for manufacturing.

Outcomes and results

One of the goals of the EU-Japan.AI project is to understand how AI is being used in the international manufacturing context within various regions, as well as to identify potential benefits and collaboration opportunities. The most pressing issues of manufacturers from all over Europe and Japan and the manufacturing application areas benefiting the most from AI-driven innovations have been identified. It shows that scientific and academic cooperation between the EU and Japan should be fostered, combining the strengths of both regions. Not only deepening the collaboration on an academic level should be a possibility, but also fostering further industrial uptake. Despite this, a significant part of the project is dedicated to social, legal and ethical issues in research and innovation in AI for manufacturing. It describes the EU and Japanese policy approaches to AI including analyses of AI policies and comparisons of both regions. The research results show that the EU and Japan share a common vision for the use of ethical AI and exchange regularly on how to adequately move forward on regulating AI both on a ministerial and an expert level. The EU and Japan seem to share considerable commonality on their concerns about the impact of AI systems, however, differences could be determined. While the EU generally has a more legalistic approach to solving these issues, the Japanese approach has been emphasizing self-regulation.

Outlook: EU-Japan.AI

Throughout the project, a web-based platform will be developed and maintained. The platform is generally conceptualized for ensuring an open exchange. It allows representatives from industry, academia, research and innovation funders, policy makers, civil societies and trade unions to access to various information and services. In particular, the ecosystem map will provide the members of the community with easy ways to find relevant information.