The University of Toronto and Konica Minolta, Inc. - the Japanese digital print, imaging and information technology company - are renewing a research partnership focused on artificial intelligence and internet-connected devices, which are sometimes referred to as the "Internet of Things" (IoT).
The partnership, first launched in 2020, was officially extended for another five years during a recent event at U of T's Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship on the St. George campus.
The collaboration thus far has involved projects with three research groups including information engineering researchers from U of T's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, computer systems researchers from the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and robotics researchers from U of T Mississauga.
"We are happy to celebrate the fact that Konica Minolta is extending its partnership with U of T until at least 2030, and we are confident that it will continue for many years beyond that," said David Wolfe, U of T's associate vice-president of international partnerships.
"We also recognize that you are doing so because there is nowhere else in the world where you can conduct research with expertise at scale like you can at U of T."
The partnership renewal follows a visit by Konica Minolta representatives to U of T last year. In addition to reviewing their existing collaborations, the Tokyo-headquartered company was keen to learn more about the Acceleration Consortium , a U of T institutional strategic initiative that is using artificial intelligence and self-driving labs to speed the discovery of critical new materials .
"We are pleased to extend our partnership with University of Toronto which started in 2020 as an AI, IoT technology research collaboration," said Toshiya Eguchi, Konica Minolta's executive vice-president and executive officer who is responsible for technologies.
"I'm hopeful that our partnership over the next five years will produce exciting results."
Eldan Cohen, an associate professor in U of T's department of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, is one of the researchers that has been involved with the partnership since its inception. Along with his research team, Cohen is working with Konica Minolta to improve manufacturing processes using an explainable machine learning model and IoT technologies.
"The main goal is to make those factories more efficient," Cohen said. "The idea is to try to … predict that we're going to have an issue [so] they can quickly try to intervene and solve the issue - and also to help them figure out where the issue is coming from."
He added that the partnership has been extremely beneficial for his students.
"It's usually very difficult to get access to real data, but by working on this project we were able to understand the real problems that factories are facing and develop a solution that would actually be useful."
Ultimately, Cohen said he hopes state-of the-art AI solutions developed by the collaborative project can be adopted by other manufacturers, as they not only help improve the efficiency of manufacturing plants but also help reduce waste.
"What you want to do is make sure products are coming out without any flaws."
Similarly, Konica Minolta says the research that flows out of the partnership will help it to reduce its environmental footprint.
"By extending our partnership with University of Toronto - which is bringing advanced AI technologies to the field of material design, development and manufacturing - we will be able to reduce environmental impact and further strengthen our contribution to society," Eguchi said.
