TOKYO -- Japanese businesses dealing in such fields as robotics, biotechnology and autonomous driving will find it easier to cooperate and share industrial data under a new policy initiative announced Monday by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Through its tentatively named Connected Industries Tokyo Initiative, the ministry aims to forge or revise frameworks for sharing information across company boundaries in order to spur tie-ups as well as the development of big-data-driven goods and services. Hiroshige Seko, minister of economy, trade and industry, announced the push in an address here. Japanese businesses need to focus more on cooperating with an eye to global markets rather than competing too much at home, said Seko, who expressed a hope to "realize a path to victory for Japan in the international competition around industrial data." The country will otherwise have "no industrial base or high-quality employment" one to two decades down the road, he said. The other high-tech fields targeted for support are production plant technology and "smart life" -- making homes more energy-efficient through the use of power-saving appliances, generation equipment, energy storage products and energy management systems. The policy push will take a cross-sectional approach to the five fields and apparently include the creation of certified "big-data banks" for sharing and using industrial data that can be gathered from such sources as machinery and automobiles. The ministry will give its stamp of approval to businesses that work on advanced data-sharing operations while also helping to make them eligible for benefits including tax breaks on facilities spending. (Nikkei)
Japan’s ministry of economy, trade and industry has announced plans to facilitate cooperation and sharing of industrial data among Japanese businesses working in robotics, biotechnology and autonomous driving. The scheme, known as Connected Industries Tokyo Initiative, will include developing frameworks for sharing information between companies and creating large-scale data banks for the use and sharing of industrial data. In a press release on Tuesday, the government said it would provide support for “collaborative research projects that are aimed at improving productivity through automation or automating tasks such as manufacturing, logistics, transportation and agriculture.”