Upgrade 2024 opened on April 10 with the EXPO at NTT Experience Center (XC) in downtown San Francisco. This EXPO, which remained open for both days of the event, showcased more than two dozen examples of technical innovations. Some of these demos, curated for a global audience, were brought in from the NTT R&D Forum, held in Tokyo in November 2023. Several technologies on display were also discussed in more detail during the event’s general session and three breakout sessions on Day 2, April 11.
The general session’s first panel on Day 2, for instance, focused on a therapeutic technology – the Autonomous Closed-loop Intervention System (ACIS) – being studied and developed by the NTT Research Medical & Health Informatics (MEI) Lab. Simulated in this short film and described in prototypical form in an exhibit at the NTT XC, the ACIS leverages disparate technologies (cardiovascular Bio Digital Twin and non-linear control systems design) and in the future will support clinicians in achieving rapid clinical stabilization in the intensive care unit for acute heart failure and acute myocardial infarction patients.
One of the three breakout tracks on Day 2 focused on security and privacy. As a partial preview, attendees visiting the NTT XC could get a closer look at NTT’s Security, Privacy, Integrity and Protection Platform (SPIP), a comprehensive web platform that features privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), including attribute-based encryption (ABE), data anonymization and multi-party computation (MPC), tools in which NTT has intellectual property with leading positions. The platform hides the technical complexities of PETs and makes it easy to take advantage of them. It was also discussed during a panel on Day 2 moderated by Takashi Goto, head of the NTT Research technology promotion team. (See SPIP session here.)
A large number of exhibits displayed innovative applications of artificial intelligence (AI), another area broken out in sessions for discussion on Day 2. At the XC, these innovations – four involving NTT’s large language model (LLM), tsuzumi – were on display:
- tsuzumi. The four exhibits included one that introduced NTT’s small, low-power LLM. The others featured AI Constellation, a concept for diverse AI models engaging in discussions and deriving unbiased solutions from varied perspectives; tsuzumi for contact centers (aka ForeSight Voice Mining) which assists in finding manuals relevant to inquiries and proposing responses; and tsuzumi for understanding documents visually.
- Connected-Al. Tailored to enhance daily living and health, these interactive robots were designed to understand and anticipate a human’s needs and analyze vital signs through contactless health features.
- GenAI. A live presentation that demonstrated how NTT DATA is using its asset-based consultancy portfolio to guide clients toward becoming generative (Gen)AI-driven companies.
- Real-Time Customer Experience (CX). Another live presentation showing how NTT DATA is using AI in its Smart CX and ForeSight Voice Mining (see above) technologies to reshape the contact center landscape, streamlining knowledge and skill management, while promoting a more human-centric approach.
Another group of exhibits focused on NTT’s IOWN initiative, which was also part of the Day 2 photonics-related breakout track. One exhibit was an overview of IOWN, which launched commercially in March 2023 in Japan, where it demonstrated huge improvements in energy efficiency and transmission capacity, alongside much lower latency. Other IOWN-related exhibits included one showcasing a combination of IOWN’s All Photonic Network (APN) Controller and network AI to support digitization and remote control of factories; and another demonstrating how IOWN’s Cognitive Foundation promotes optimal ICT resource orchestration. A final demo showed how to apply IOWN’s high-capacity and low-latency performance to emerging non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) use cases supported by 5G/6G specifications.
Six exhibits fell under the general heading of “Human Sense.” Three focused on audio, including a borderless communications assistant and voice biomarker, which can translate automatically in 14 languages and promote well-being and performance through a digital healthcare package; a signal-processing technology called ConceptBeam, which can measure the semantic distance between signals without necessarily associating them with words, with potential applications in the early detection of diseases; and personalized sound-zone earphones that harmonize the virtual world with real-world context. The other exhibits in this group included a demo of Kirameki ultra-real definition display technology, which is able to represent textures; an immersive reality platform called N. Verses that enables deploying virtual private server (VPS) technology in a wide variety of scenarios; and an inspiring demo of how electromyography (EMG) and speech synthesis technologies can help amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients regain self-expression. (For more, see the Project Humanity website.)
Four exhibits relating to sustainability included the following:
- Artificial photosynthesis. A CO2 reduction technology that simulates plant photosynthesis using photo semiconductors and catalyst materials.
- Algal genome editing. Algae can be altered to more effectively absorb CO2 dissolved in ocean water. Marine life feeds on the algae, fixing the algal carbon in their bodies, and storing CO2 that would otherwise be in the atmosphere in marine ecosystems.
- Eco-friendly materials. These include solar quartz photovoltaic glass (SQPV), an efficient, power-generating clear solar glass that transmits visible light; HIREC super hydrophobic coating, which repels water, prevents heavy snow accumulations on structures and avoids radio wave attenuation; and SAPOE 5000, an anti-rust powder coating that prevents degradation from rust, UV, sea salt and other corrosives.
- Sustainability Service Offerings. NTT DATA can help organizations reach carbon net-zero emissions and drive business innovation with sustainable value chains, setting actionable ESG goals and a net-zero roadmap with science-based targets while complying with evolving regulations.
Two additional exhibits involved applications in logistics and manufacturing. These included a smart transportation platform that empowers decision makers in creating new bus routes and optimizing old ones; and a GPU-accelerated specular metrology process that captures detailed surface data from even very reflective materials, for tasks such as motherboard inspection, automotive and aerospace paint damage, fracture detection, corrosion detection and others.