Fujitsu launches industry’s first AI-equipped daycare admissions screening software

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Fujitsu has commenced sales in Japan of industry’s first AI-powered software product intended to help municipal employees perform child daycare-related tasks.

Fujitsu developed a public solution with a child-rearing and daycare center AI admissions screening system that features Fujitsu Human Centric AI Zinrai, the company’s artificial intelligence technology. The new product automatically matches thousands of children to daycare centers, in seconds, based on diverse applicant needs and detailed criteria determined by local governments.

In the admissions process of matching children to daycare centers, local government employees assign children to daycare centers on a “trial and error” basis. Such procedure is based on complex requirements that include applicant priority criteria set by each local government as well as requests for siblings to be admitted to the same daycare center, to satisfy the requests of all applicants to the maximum extent possible. As a result, it takes time to assign seats and notify results. Also, it has been difficult to adopt new standards that respond to detailed requests, as it complicates the screening process.

Fujitsu said the new software is driven by Zinrai AI technology that incorporates game theory, a mathematical approach that rationally resolves the relationships between people with conflicting interests. This matches thousands of children to daycare centers in a few seconds according to applicant priority criteria, so that all applicants have as many of their requests met as possible.

The product is currently being trialed by more than 30 local governments, including in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture. The city of Kusatsu in the same prefecture also plans to deploy the software in fiscal 2018, and Tokyo’s Minato ward is considering use of the solution from fiscal 2019