SkyDisc, a Japan-based artificial intelligence (AI) solution developer, is broadening its AI solutions in Thailand by collaborating with academic institutes and business partners.
Mr Hashimoto sees AI opportunities here.
Chief executive Osamu Hashimoto told the Bangkok Post the company has been talking with a university in Thailand working on AI-related R&D and Internet of Things (IoT) technology.
The company would not name the university as the talks are ongoing, he said.
SkyDisc is one of the companies in Fukuoka that was visited last year by a Thai government team, led by Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak, for bilateral collaboration on several projects.
"SkyDisc's AI technology solutions can serve the development of Thailand in the public and private sectors," said Mr Hashimoto, who recently visited Thailand to talk with the university and search for a local partner to introduce its technology here.
He founded the company in 2013, based on his system integration and AI knowledge.
SkyDisc focuses on industrial IoT, making conventional factories with limited budgets and smart technology. He said application fields being run by SkyDisc are chemical, water processing and power plants, along with manufacturing facilities.
The company positions itself as a one-stop IoT solution provider, offering AI-infused data collection, data communications, data visualisation and data analysis.
"There are six type of sensor modules and three types of communication modules to serve factories' sensing needs," said Mr Hashimoto.
He said SkyGate channels data from multiple sensors into a gateway, visualising it on a PC or mobile phone.
SkyAI is a service that provides "judgement results", including the normality or abnormality of a machine using application programming interface (API), from time series data collected by IoT sensor devices.
"We have the optimal SkyDisc library for shaping and analysing AI data, AI learning models using learning fields and API. From these, we can provide highly accurate judgement results," said Mr Hashimoto.
For car parts manufacturers, he said injection modelling machines have problems such as colour imbalances, short shots and flashes.
To tackle this issue, the client is given access to a programmable logic controller and collected data from the machine, he said.
"Previously, even skilled engineers couldn't find the reason for failures, but SkyDisc AI can suss out the top 10 parameters leading to them and find a solution when they occur," said Mr Hashimoto.
At power plants where the maintenance of motors and pumps requires high-level engineers with lots of experience, experienced workers are retiring, while it takes time to train new engineers, he said.
Mr Hashimoto said while skilled engineers can perform inspections, even they cannot always pinpoint the cause of failure, unlike AI, which is better equipped in that regard.
He said there are several Japanese companies in Thailand to which SkyDisc plans to propose its AI and IoT solutions.