Mitsubishi Electric Corporation announced that it has invested in Sakana AI Inc., a Japan-based AI startup focused on developing next-generation AI foundation models. The investment aims to create new solutions and expand businesses related to Mitsubishi Electric’s Serendie digital platform. The collaboration will leverage Sakana AI’s expertise in using AI to optimize complex business operations involving tacit knowledge.
Sakana AI’s technologies integrate methods for composing multiple foundational models for inference and enable AI to learn and utilize tacit domain knowledge and accumulated expertise. Mitsubishi Electric plans to combine its components, customer assets, and domain knowledge from diverse businesses with Sakana AI’s AI foundation-model technologies.
The companies expect to develop solutions that support precise decision-making in complex business domains where general-purpose AI models have faced limitations. Solutions will target sectors including manufacturing and infrastructure. Mitsubishi Electric intends to expand Serendie related businesses and advance its digital transformation to address social challenges through generative AI.
Ren Ito, Co-founder of Sakana AI Inc., stated that the company will position AI use in the manufacturing domain, including physical AI, as its third strategic pillar after financial and defense sectors. The collaboration will combine Mitsubishi Electric’s manufacturing knowledge and datasets with Sakana AI’s next-generation AI technologies to implement AI solutions in society.
Satoshi Takeda, Senior Vice President, CDO, and Group President of Digital Innovation at Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, said the investment will strengthen the Serendie digital platform and leverage generative AI to create new business value. He described it as a step toward broadening AI’s application to real-world challenges.
The partnership addresses growing interest in generative AI for launching new businesses and automating or enhancing operations amid rapid AI advances and complex social challenges.
