The new fund, officially a part of Toyota Research Institute, is called Toyota AI Ventures, and will concentrate its investments in four areas: artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous mobility, and data and cloud technology. The effort should pit Toyota against a wide variety of big-name auto and tech-industry players, including Google, Tesla, Ford, and others.
Toyota AI Ventures, which is based in Silicon Valley, has already put money into three startups: Israel’s Intuition Robotics, Silicon Valley’s Nauto, and England’s SlamCore.