Japan's investment in artificial intelligence is still small, compared to that of the United States and China in both the public and private sectors.
But a growing number of Japanese companies have realized the need to get into the AI market more quickly.
The Artificial Intelligence Exhibition & Conference, or AI Expo, began Wednesday at Tokyo Big Sight for a three-day run, the second of its kind in Japan following the first one last June.
About 300 companies from a wide range of industries, from agriculture to information technology, introduce their AI products at display booths.
Virtual artist IA performs based on how the audience in front of her reacts.
IA is happy after drawing smiles and a round of applause.
Hong Kong-based SenseTime's facial recognition surveillance attracts media attention.
Ravi Jain, vice president of Amazon.com Inc.'s Alexa machine learning platform, delivers a speech entitled "The Democratization of AI."
