Fujifilm establishes the Informatics Research Laboratory

FUJIFILM Corporation (President: Shigehiro Nakajima) has announced that it will establish the Informatics Research Laboratory on April 1, 2016 to conduct R&D on the cutting edge technologies in the field of information sciences*4 including data analysis and the software fundamental technologies, so as to reinforce its information fundamental technologies that covers advanced ICT*** such as IoT (Internet of Things)* and AI (Artificial Intelligence)** and expand their applications,

Recently the advancement of ICT has made an drastic increase in generating diverse type of data around the world. With a trend to utilize the big data for business actively, big data analysis is growing in importance.
Today, research on automatic big data analysis is progressing as seen in machine learning*5 and deep learning*6 and the practical application of AI is becoming a reality. At the R&D those studies using AI are being undertaken: to analyze existing data for exploring / developing new substances and materials, or to analyze published research papers or in-house development data to contribute to the development of innovative drugs. In the near future an advancement of AI and spread of IoT will be accelerated and data analysis is expected to be used not only for R&D but also in the fields of marketing, production, administration and management.

Fujifilm has been applying machine learning in big data analysis of images. For example, in the photographic field, the company developed “Image Organizer” a unique image analysis technology and applied it to the “Year Album” service which automatically selects good photos from a large number of images and lay out them into a photo album. In the medical field, Fujifilm has developed “Volume Analyzer SYNAPSE VINCENT” the high-precision 3D image analysis system which uses cross-section from CT or MRI scans to build a highly accurate 3D image.
Furthermore, Fujifilm will bring together its data scientists*7 currently scattered over the multiple research sites and establish the Informatics Research Laboratory, in order to reinforce its information fundamental technologies in response to upcoming advanced ICT use and expand its applications. The Informatics Research Laboratory will promote partnership with universities, research institutes and private enterprises both in and outside Japan, to engage in R&D on cutting edge technologies such as big data analysis in the field of information sciences and software fundamental technologies. We will also work on HR development to foster future data scientists.
We will apply Information fundamental technologies developed at the Informatics Research Laboratory to create new materials, products and solution services suitable for IoT society. These technologies will be used in marketing activities based on precise demand projection effectively and will be also applied to Fujifilm's total corporate activities in business.
Fujifilm will continue to apply its advanced proprietary technologies to develop products and services that meet true customer needs, thereby providing new values to our society.

• *Abbreviation for the “Internet of Things”. It refers to a mechanism of connecting “things” featuring various sensors to the Internet to gather and analyze data for creating values that could not be attained until now.
• **Abbreviation for “Artificial Intelligence”. It refers to research and technology aimed at making computers handle humans' intellectual activities such as memory and learning.
• ***Abbreviation for “Information and Communication Technology”. It is a phrase that adds the importance of communication to the conventional concept of “IT (Information Technology)”.
• *4Scientific fields including information studies, data processing, information systems, information science and related fields, as well as data analysis, AI technology and system fundamental technologies that utilize them.
• *5Technologies and techniques to have a computer fulfill functions equivalent to humans' natural learning ability; One of the AI studies
• *6A “machine learning” method in which a computer system learns data characteristics and identifies or categorizes events; It learns data characteristics in depth and recognizes them at a very high level of accuracy.
• *7Experts that draw insight applicable to business from big data which is a massive amount of data.

[ Overview of the new organization ]

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