A new cutting-edge tech lab focused on developing insurance models powered by AI is launching in England.

Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance (ANDI), a leading Japanese general insurance company, and Mind Foundry, an AI startup founded by two University of Oxford professors, are collaborating in a new Aioi R&D Lab in Oxford.

“Insurance was born in the U.K. and breakthroughs of many kinds have their origin here, so it’s the perfect place for our new hub of innovation. The R&D Lab aims to solve global-scale social issues through developing cutting-edge insurance and services utilizing AI technologies,” said Keisuke Niiro, president of ANDI.

The applied ML algorithms from Mind Foundry will be used to continue to improve fraud detection, automation, safe driving, and customer retention. Increased automation will aid with societal issues such as an aging population and climate crisis.

There are five areas of focus for the new Aioi R&D Lab:

“Big data is useful up to a point, but what we need now are very smart algorithms that can distill that data into knowledge that is interpretable, valuable, understandable, and beneficial to everybody. We want to understand the societal impact — not just of insurance, but of risk, environment, and sustainability — and form a foundation for how algorithms of all levels of sophistication can work in harmony with society,” said Stephen Roberts, Mind Foundry co-founder and University of Oxford professor of Machine Learning.

Added Michael Osborne, who is the other Mind Foundry co-founder and also an Oxford professor of Machine Learning: “AI is one of a small number of transformational technologies that will truly change the face of our society and planet. But most AI is not yet up to the task, because it is not trustworthy, reliable, or responsible. Our hope is that with the Aioi R&D Lab – Oxford we will develop new technologies within AI that are capable of being all of those things.”