I am Ken Sakamura, and I have assumed the position of Representative Director of the AI Data Consortium, succeeding Dr. Makoto Nagao, the former Chairman of the Consortium, who passed away on May 23, 2022.

For many years, I have been researching and developing IoT infrastructure through the TRON project. Throughout this journey, I have realized that AI holds immense potential for maximizing the benefits of IoT. In fact, without the right AI, achieving total optimization—such as providing optimal feedback from the vast amounts of data collected by IoT—would be impossible.

Data is crucial for training effective AI. As the saying goes, “AI is data hungry.” For instance, when optimizing purchasing in the retail sector, it is beneficial to train AI not only with sales data directly related to the application but also with weather, traffic conditions, and various other social data. Conversely, such highly generalized data is a public resource that can be used to build better AI for the benefit of all. To distribute these valuable public resources for the benefit of many, “liquidity,” as economists call it, is indispensable.

Data trading for a fee involves various challenges, such as intellectual property and guarantees, and faces liquidity issues greater than those of physical, relative trading. AIDC has been addressing these challenges to establish an infrastructure—or “market”—to enhance the liquidity of this data.

Since 2015, I have been working with the organization “Open Data Council for Public Transportation: ODPT,” which primarily aims to open up public transportation-related data for various social activities, from volunteers creating mobility apps for people with disabilities to the use of transit service companies. ODPT aims to contribute public transportation-related data to a variety of social activities, from volunteers creating mobility apps for people with disabilities to transit service companies.

However, public transportation data can naturally be used for AI education, and above all, we face the same liquidity issues with highly generalized data resources. In many countries, public transportation is managed by the government and can be opened as long as the head of the municipality directs it. However, in Japan, the private sector has been intricately involved in the process of “privatization,” and open data has not progressed for a long time. The ODPT was initiated to address this very problem.

From this perspective, ODPT and AIDC are comrades working on the same issues from both the provider and user sides, so to speak, and the benefits of cooperation are significant.

Data is a resource that will never run out—the more channels we have for its use, the more benefits we will gain. I hope to see ODPT and AIDC collaborate to standardize data distribution systems in Japan.

I am humbled to succeed the great Dr. Nagao as Representative Director. I look forward to serving you with my best efforts, and I ask for your continued support and cooperation in the future.

Ken Sakamura
AI Data Consortium, President