Fujitsu, Toyota Systems leverage Fujitsu’s Quantum-Inspired Digital Annealer to streamline automobile production sequence

Project marks first application of quantum-inspired technology in Japan for automobile production

Toyota Systems Corporation, Fujitsu Limited

Tokyo and Nagoya, October 21, 2022

Fujitsu Limited and Toyota Systems Corporation (hereinafter Toyota Systems) today announced the launch of a new automobile production instruction system at Toyota Motor Corporation‘s ⁽¹⁾ Tsutsumi plant leveraging Fujitsu's Quantum-Inspired Digital Annealer technology ⁽²⁾.

The Digital Annealer offers users access to powerful combinatorial optimization problem-solving capabilities for challenges that prove difficult for conventional hardware, and Toyota Systems and Fujitsu previously used the technology in 2020 in a project to optimize supply chain and logistics network operations essential to support automobile production. The latest project represents the first use case in Japan in which Fujitsu’s Digital Annealer technology has been applied to streamline automobile production operations.

The new system enables efficient and high-speed solution searching by utilizing constraint processing technology to express complex business constraints in equations and inequalities, a proprietary technology available since the third generation of the Digital Annealer—the processing technology was developed by Fujitsu Research based on its long-time expertise in the manufacturing industry.

The new vehicle production instruction system will enable Toyota Motor Corporation to respond quickly to production fluctuations and also reduce the workload of its employees.
Moving forward, Toyota Systems and Fujitsu plan to expand the system to Toyota Motor Corporation’s other plants in Japan and, in the future, to Toyota Motor Corporation’s overseas plants.

From October 2022, Fujitsu will commercially launch its "Fujitsu Computing as a Service (below, CaaS)" service portfolio in Japan, which delivers advanced computing technologies such as the Digital Annealer and software technologies to regular commercial users, lowering the barrier to access high performance computing resources and technologies like AI. Fujitsu plans to roll-out the service globally to markets outside of Japan from fiscal 2023.

Through the new technology developed for this project, Toyota Systems aims to realize a safe, secure and comfortable mobility society by supporting Toyota Motor Corporation’s IT based business transformation.

Fujitsu is committed to providing optimal IT environments and solutions that meet customers’ diverse needs under its portfolio of global solutions to realize a sustainable world, “Fujitsu Uvance.”

• [1]
  Toyota Motor Corporation :
  President and Representative Director: Akio Toyoda; Head Office: Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.
• [2]
  Quantum-inspired technology :
  A number of acceleration technologies inspired by quantum technology, but not quantum effects.

Related Links

• Fujitsu Digital Annealer Website
• Fujitsu Computing as a Service
• Fujitsu and Toyota Systems Optimize Large-Scale Supply Chain Logistics using Quantum-Inspired Technology (Press release, September 10, 2020)

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