Unmanned Japan lab opens with robots at work as researchers push AI, automation

TOKYO – A Tokyo-based university in Japan has opened a laboratory where robots are carrying out medical experiments once handled by human researchers as it aims to eventually automate nearly the entire research process.

The facility at the Institute of Science Tokyo’s Yushima campus, known as the Robotics Innovation Center, features 10 robots, including a humanoid model called Maholo LabDroid, and no human staff.

The university plans to significantly increase the number of automatons in the long run, integrating automation systems with artificial intelligence.

Using two arms, the robots can perform delicate tasks such as transferring fixed amounts of reagents and opening the doors of temperature-controlled equipment to place and remove items. Cell cultivation, which has already been programmed, can also be carried out automatically.

The university plans to expand the number of robots to around 2,000 by 2040, carrying out almost all research tasks from generating hypotheses to experimental verification.

“We want to make Japan’s science the best in the world,” said the centre’s head Keiichi Nakayama, at an opening ceremony for the facility in mid-April, citing AI and robotics as key tools to achieve that goal. Robots also joined the ribbon-cutting event.

The move comes as research institutions face challenges including labor shortages and the need to reduce human error in experimental work.

Maholo has already been introduced at a hospital in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, in western Japan focused on ophthalmology, where it is used in clinical research involving induced pluripotent stem including for cell culture tasks. KYODO NEWS