Since I left my journalistic stage in mid-1999, I had not seen in detail what the Japanese company Fujitsu was doing in Technology. I remember, at that time, Adrián Piera as president of the Spanish subsidiary in Fujitsu, and that he was also the president of the Madrid Chamber of Commerce. But I don’t remember, unless I dig into Google, what the Japanese company was at that time and why it was positioned as one of the clear leaders in its sector. Today Fujitsu, how could it be otherwise, is very focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and has a clear strategy called ‘Zinrai’ to improve people’s lives through AI.
On the occasion of the presentation of a Report presented last week, in collaboration with the consulting firm Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC), where it was revealed “what AI brings to the business”, I had the opportunity to dive on the surface of Fujitsu to learn about some of the developments and projects that occupy him today in the field of artificial intelligence.
One of the most striking is the development of a technology to detect objects, even when only a small amount of data is available, based on deep learning. Especially useful for the medical field, AI has been trying for some time to automate tasks to detect anomalous objects and points in the analysis of diagnostic images. But to produce accurate results, you typically need tens of thousands of images with correct data.
Now, Fujitsu Laboratories has developed a patent-pending technology that takes the object location estimates produced by the neural object detection network and converts them into a reconstruction of the original image. Then, by evaluating the difference between the original input image and the reconstructed one, you can create large volumes of correct data where the position of objects has been accurately estimated. This increases the level of accuracy in object detection.
Even more surprising than this technology is the pilot announced in June by Fujitsu and the Asahi Shuzo company to make sake (rice wine) using predictive artificial intelligence. The goal of both companies is to consistently produce and supply high-quality sake. And because? Because as Japanese society ages, labor shortages are expected in making sake. To address this problem, the company has been working for many years to record and systematize its experience in rice wine making.
Fujitsu and Asahi Shuzo want to systematize the experience and knowledge of each employee, reviewing and evaluating the predictive AI model with accumulated data such as temperature and the proportion by weight of different ingredients, and calculating the predicted values throughout the manufacturing process. of sake.
These two examples confirm one of the main conclusions of the AI Report presented by Fujitsu a few days ago: ” AI is a strategic element for business transformation, and undoubtedly offers enormous business benefits,” said Albert Mercadal, Director of Big Data and Fujitsu Analytics in Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa.
In Spain, the same study pointed out, although most companies are interested in artificial intelligence, only 17% of companies consider AI strategically important for the future of their businesses, and only 11% are already using it. implementing artificial intelligence strategies. 29% of Spanish companies say they have this technology under development, and 35% plan to incorporate it in the next two years. 26% explain that it is a topic of study and discussion.
The financial sector is the one that is integrating AI the fastest, and the Fujitsu report affirms that 78% of financial institutions highly value the incorporation of AI, since it offers a great change to detect and prevent issues such as fraud , or for the prediction of financial situations such as liquidity.
However, the conclusions of the Report detail how in the Spanish industrial sector a great push is still required to bring artificial intelligence to many of the internal processes of companies, both to improve the quality of products, increase the production or detection of defects in factories.
