Photo/Illutration Shinji Okuyama, right, president of the Japanese arm of Google, announces a plan on Nov. 17 in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward to invest in a research project at Tohoku University aimed at reducing the risk of dementia using artificial intelligence. (Takahiro Takenouchi)

Google LLC is seeking to expedite scientific and medical studies by partnering with Japanese universities and offering the assistance of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technology and donations.

The U.S-based tech giant will donate $1 million (150 million yen) to a research project at Tohoku University aimed at reducing the risk of dementia using artificial intelligence.

Google similarly announced its ongoing collaboration with Kyoto University’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) on Nov. 17.

Google and the CiRA are currently proceeding with a joint verification test on an AI-driven system designed to autonomously propose scientific hypotheses.

These academic partnerships were announced at an event held in Tokyo as part of Google’s recent efforts to beef up investment in the “AI for Science” field. Google has increasingly been pouring resources into scientific surveys and ventures.

Researchers at Google were among the laureates of not only the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded to an AI-adopted study team, but also the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics, which recognizes quantum computing research.

Known by the name of AlphaFold, an AI model of Google is currently utilized by more than 3 million scientists worldwide, including 150,000 from Japan, in a quest to illustrate protein structures that were previously difficult to analyze or predict.

Google is already establishing itself as a major platform in the science domain, beyond its original area of expertise.

Pushmeet Kohli, an official from the Google DeepMind team, who is responsible particularly for AI development for scientific purposes, emphasized in an interview that the non-human form of intelligence will help accelerate science and thereby lead humanity into a new era.

Kohli likewise stated that science discoveries made by AI will, in turn, have a commercial impact at some point in the future.

On the day of the announcement, Shinji Okuyama, president of the Japanese arm of Google, revealed a series of endeavors to extend support to university and college labs, with an eye toward further speeding the trend along.

The project at Tohoku University will utilize an AI model to reproduce past sights of towns and cities through images and videos by referring to old photos and other records.

Making the most of the AI-generated materials, it will examine whether stimulating people’s cognitive functions can lessen the risk of dementia.

Working with Kyoto University’s CiRA, Google embarked on a validation trial in September for the “AI co-scientist” system.

Interpreting and analyzing data from both inside and outside the CiRA, the digitized colleague can reportedly suggest adequate hypotheses for a range of research objectives, inclusive of the next-generation way to efficiently produce induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

Hirohide Saito, a biological professor at Kyoto University, took the stage during the presentation session organized in the capital’s Shibuya Ward on Nov. 17.

“Teaming with the system makes me feel as if I have an additional, exceptionally skilled scientist in my lab,” Saito said while praising Google for its technology. “I am seeing firsthand how powerful it is, just as I did at the advent of AlphaFold.”

Saito continued, “The use of AI will become an essential part of science from here on out.”

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