Japan-based Fujitsu teamed with a local women’s university to jointly work on AI ethics to promote gender equality, the vendor’s latest move under its small research lab programme.

Fujitsu’s move with the Ochanomizu University brings the number of institutions involved in the research scheme to 12.

It expanded the programme by eight universities in 2022. Its international presence includes facilities at Ben-Gurion University in Israel and the University of Toronto.

The vendor plans to add more overseas institutions to drive global R&D cooperation.

In a statement, Fujitsu explained the initiative embeds its researchers at technology incubators at universities in Japan and overseas to conduct joint research across five disciplines: AI; computing; converging technologies; data and security; and the fusion of high-performance computing and AI.

Fujitsu CTO Vivek Mahajan stated it believes the programme will “position us to remain one of the world’s best technology providers and contribute to the solution of many challenges facing our customers as well as society at large”.