The two companies say that they share common values, such as contributing to society through technological and industrial development, a people-centred approach, and global contributions that start in Japan.

The companies say they will further deepen their collaboration with the aim of achieving a "society with zero traffic accidents" as the first step towards realising a prosperous mobility society where safety and freedom are in harmony.

According to the companies, in order to achieve a society with zero traffic accidents, it is necessary to take an infrastructure-cooperative approach that constantly connects people, mobility and infrastructure, in addition to the advancement of driving support technology based on data-driven technology in cars and the development of future automated driving technology.

"To achieve both of these things, Toyota is developing Software Defined Vehicles (SDV) with safety and security as the top priority," the companies state in their announcement.

"Alongside the evolution of SDV, it will become more important to build infrastructure such as a high-speed, high-quality communication infrastructure, an AI infrastructure that can collect and intelligently process vast amounts of information, and a computing infrastructure."

NTT and Toyota plan to jointly build a "Mobility AI Platform" that combines a seamless communications infrastructure with AI and computing platforms that can intelligently process large amounts of data.

The Mobility AI Platform will include distributed data centres housing computing resources for analysing and processing vast amounts of data using AI and IOWN optical communication technology.

"The Mobility AI Platform aims to standardise the mobility field, and we envision that it will be used not only by the two companies, but also by a wide range of industry, government, and academic partners who share the goal of realising a society with zero traffic accidents," the companies said.

The two companies expect to invest a total of 500 billion yen (US$3.28 billion) by 2030.

Starting in 2025, Toyota and NTT will begin development of the Mobility AI Platform, and from around 2028 under the three-pronged infrastructure, they will begin social implementation and collaboration with various partners, aiming for widespread adoption from 2030 onwards.