June 11th 2025

Author

Max Gray
June 11, 2025

The Daily Innovation Newsletter

Enjoying this newsletter? Know someone who would too? Forward this email to them!

June 11th 2025

💻 Technology

Toyota will launch Woven City in fall 2025, a fully connected prototype metropolis at the base of Mount Fuji designed to test autonomous vehicles, AI-driven infrastructure, and hydrogen-powered sustainability systems. Initially home to 100 residents, the city integrates smart homes, autonomous mobility, and underground logistics in a real-world urban lab. Built as a living testbed, the city aims to shape scalable smart city models for future global use.

🚘 Transport

A Tokyo-based consortium led by Mitsubishi Fuso, Mitsubishi Motors, U.S. startup Ample, and Yamato Transport will deploy 150 battery-swappable EVs and 14 automated stations by September 2025, aiming to slash EV charging time to just five minutes. Backed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the project uses Ample’s fully automated swapping tech to accelerate commercial fleet electrification and reduce urban CO₂ emissions. This initiative, expanding on a successful Kyoto pilot, also positions the stations to offer future energy grid services, supporting Japan’s 2050 carbon neutrality goals.

Researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have developed a cognitive AI system that enables autonomous vehicles to make socially aware, human-like decisions, significantly improving road safety. Unlike traditional AVs that assess risk in isolation, the system prioritizes vulnerable users like pedestrians and cyclists using ethical reasoning and foresight. In 2,000 simulations, the AI cut risk exposure to pedestrians by 51.7% and improved driving efficiency, with results published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

🦾 Robotics

China’s AI² Robotics has deployed AlphaBot2, a general-purpose humanoid robot, at Dongfeng Liuzhou Motor's factory, marking the country's first full-scenario use of a domestically developed embodied AI model in automotive manufacturing. Powered by the GOVLA Vision-Language-Action model and Alpha Brain system, AlphaBot2 performs diverse tasks, inspection, logistics, and precision assembly, with high adaptability and dexterity, operating autonomously without prior training. This deployment not only boosts factory automation but also creates a real-world learning loop to enhance AI performance, with potential applications across commercial and domestic sectors.

Researchers at Seoul National University have created a single-microphone 3D Acoustic Ranging (3DAR) system that enables robots to locate and interpret sounds even in loud, visually obstructed settings. Unlike traditional multi-mic arrays, this compact, cost-effective system filters noise, enhances directional hearing, and allows human-robot and robot-to-robot communication using split-frequency audio. Demonstrated on mobile robots, 3DAR could transform rescue operations, smart factories, and human-robot collaboration.

🌎 Sustainability

Scientists at Seoul National University have developed nickel-based, catalyst-free electrodes for water electrolysis that can self-heal using trace iron from the electrolyte, significantly reducing green hydrogen production costs. Their method, using dynamic polarization control, allows electrodes to recover performance through brief voltage-induced regeneration, avoiding the need for expensive precious metal catalysts. Demonstrated over 1,000 hours of stable operation, this innovation, published in Nature Communications, offers a scalable, low-cost solution to support Korea’s hydrogen economy and global carbon neutrality goals.

That’s all for today, please reply to this email if you have any comments or feedback, we’d love to hear from you about what we can do better!

Have you enjoyed this email? Make sure to share it with your friends and colleagues.

See you soon,

Max

Reply

or to participate.