Finally, Japan has remembered that it is one of the main producers and exporters of technology and has decided to make its voice heard in the field of artificial intelligence, a frontier sector in which it has so far not played a role, leaving the entire stage to neighboring China. Among the giants moving, somewhat surprisingly, not a major software house but an automaker, Toyota, which nevertheless has broad shoulders being the world’s top brand by sales volume to support such an undertaking.
BEYOND THE PROCLAMATIONS, WHAT IS IT?
The proclamations are, as usual, emphatic and enthusiastic. Toyota indeed talks about artificial intelligence that will safeguard jobs, rather than replace flesh-and-blood workers. A not-so-subtle reference to the experiences previously faced by Chinese workers and now by thousands of American workers, from Amazon to Meta up to Microsoft, Salesforce and Pinterest (the list would be long) who have seen the doors slammed in their faces when the algorithm entered the company.
WHO IS DEVELOPING TOYOTA’S AI?
The cornerstone of this new Japanese bet will be Woven by Toyota, the division spread across an entire township (Woven City, in Shizuoka Prefecture, romantically located, according to the press materials, at the foot of Mount Fuji, populated only by startups, research institutes and 300 company employees with their families) created to experiment with the mobility of the future which, according to the Japanese brand, is known not to be exclusively electric but will certainly also be autonomous driving.
It is probably no coincidence that the new CEO and executive chairman and managing director, Kenta Kon, who has just replaced Koji Sato, besides being the brand’s CFO was also the controller of accounts precisely at Woven. Those who feared that his arrival at the helm would mean less engineering and more focus on financial management have been at least partly disproved: R&D will be done and will be carried out directly by Toyota, without relying on third-party software.
BUT TOYOTA CANNOT SPLURGE
But the Japanese automaker, given the boldness of Chinese rivals and the uncertainties on the front of Trump-era tariffs, cannot afford to waste money. Also because to the already confused and fluid global picture a new unforeseen event has been added: the war in the Middle East.
In recent hours Toyota Motor has in fact declared that it expects net profit for the fiscal year ending March 2027 to fall by 22% compared to the previous year, settling at 3 trillion yen (19.1 billion dollars), precisely due to the surge in raw material costs, partly caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Toyota expects net sales of 51 trillion yen, an increase of 0.6% compared to the previous year, while operating profit is expected to decrease by 20.3% to 3 trillion yen. These statements contributed to weighing down the Nikkei index which closed the last session of the week down 0.19 percent.
