Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Europe (AND-E) and its parent, the global insurance brand Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance (ANDI), have made a significant investment in AI company Mind Foundry, to launch a new joint venture research lab in Oxford.
The Aioi R&D Lab – Oxford will bring together insights from the Aioi Nissay Dowa Group of companies and the wider insurance sector with applied machine learning expertise from Mind Foundry, an Oxford University spin-off that develops AI to solve the world’s most important problems.
The partnership builds on an already successful collaboration that has delivered improvements across customer retention, safe driving and fraud detection.
According to the announcement, the new lab will aim to develop real-world solutions to tackle some of the most significant challenges facing society, from sustainability to autonomous mobility.
Keisuke Niiro, President of ANDI said: “Insurance was born in the UK and breakthroughs of many kinds have their origin here, so it’s the perfect place for our new hub of innovation. The Aioi R&D Lab aims to solve global-scale social issues through developing cutting-edge insurance and services utilising AI technologies.
“The Lab will develop innovative solutions through combining cutting-edge capabilities of Oxford researchers, AI provided by Mind Foundry, and the world-class insurance capability of Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance. Coming together as “One Team,” I am confident Aioi Nissay Dowa and the experts in the Oxford ecosystem can offer solutions that will have a tremendous impact on the world.
The launch of the Aioi R&D Lab – Oxford represents a significant step forward for Aioi Nissay Dowa’s innovation strategy and corporate social value mission, added Michael Kainzbauer, Group CEO at AND-E.
“We have made a long-term commitment to invest in cutting-edge innovation in the development of new insurance models, products, and services – not just for our own benefit, but to create a shared value that solves social and community issues across all parts of society,” said Kainzbauer.
“Insurance is pivotal to mitigating and protecting people from the impact of some of the biggest issues facing our planet and our populations, and we are excited to be working with Mind Foundry to take some big strides towards practical solutions that will drive change at a massive scale.”
The research conducted at the Lab will focus on topics that create shared value across all of society, including: mobility, autonomous driving, future insurance (like AI), climate, and health and wellness.
Key representatives from AND-E and Mind Foundry are on the board of the Aioi R&D Lab – Oxford. Michael Kainzbauer, AND-E CEO will Chair the board and Jun Ikegami, Executive Manager at AND-E will become CEO.
They will work alongside Mind Foundry CEO Brian Mullins and ANDI representatives from the ANDI holding company (Masauki Yazawa and Kuniaki Uehara).
The lab will also be supported by an advisory board of world-renowned professors from the University of Oxford with expertise across many disciplines that sit at the heart of the transformations facing society, and insurance in particular, over the coming decades.
By bringing together different philosophies and science under one roof, the lab aims to build a better understanding of the data that surrounds us all and identify ways in which truly informative “big knowledge” can be extracted from that information, not just “big data”, said Mind Foundry co-founder and University of Oxford Professor of Machine Learning Stephen Roberts.
