Kubota Corporation has begun research and development to make autonomous agricultural robots and other future farming technologies a reality at the North America Research & Development Unit (Office: Grapevine, Texas, USA) established in January this year as a new research group in the United States.
The North America R&D Unit will tackle a variety of research and development themes, such as further advancement of data-driven agriculture using AI, smart technologies to realize autonomous robots, and pioneer research into agricultural machinery driven by next-generation power sources in anticipation of a carbon-neutral society. This new research group is composed of experts in a wide range of fields from inside and outside of the Kubota Group. Kubota has acquired AgJunction Inc, a self-driving technology company in December 2021. Kubota has partnered with DIMAAG-AI Inc., a Silicon Valley AI-technology company which includes Ian Wright (co-founder Tesla, Wrightspeed).
The unit has already started to develop concepts for various next-generation agricultural machinery expected for use on vineyards in the United States and are engaged in research and development with Silicon Valley speed way.
While inviting more external resources and employing other measures to strengthen its open innovation development system, Kubota will continue to contribute to the realization of a carbon neutral society by 2050 through solutions of environment-friendly products and services.