It is the mission of RIEC (Research Institute of Electrical Communication) to realize a new paradigm of communications that enriches people’s lives. Communication plays various important roles in human society. Information communication technology (ICT) has been drastically changing the way we deal with information, overriding our biological limitations and expanding the world of communication from among people to among things as well as between people and things. RIEC is determined to work for future society with further advanced ICT, contributing to the welfare, safety, and security of human beings by opening up a new era of academically rooted innovation befitting universities.
The COVID-19 pandemic has spread throughout the world since the end of 2019, mutating several times. The spread of infection is still continuing worldwide, and global efforts are being made to resolve it. In addition to our efforts in the COVID-19 crisis as members of the human race, RIEC would also like to fulfill its responsibility as a research institute in the field of ICT, recognizing the impact of repeated exposure in information spreading particularly during the pandemic or other difficult social conditions, as well as the importance of future technologies for the world through Web conferencing, telelearning, remote medicine and counseling, and other distant communications via the internet. These are the direct and indirect issues that RIEC should address.
It is also important to recognize that we are in a situation where we should make a variety of efforts Japanese universities have never made before to secure the resources needed to improve the research environment and activities. Under these circumstances, RIEC will first try to solve problems to realize a sophisticated ICT society, and secondly investigate basic problems, which can be applied to ICTs in the future. RIEC has been trying to solve many problems in the research fields of ICTs, and it is RIEC’s responsibility to continue contributing to the building of a future ICT society.
As described below, RIEC has been responding and will continue to respond to present-day needs, open up new worlds of communication for the future, work together with industry to create core technologies leading to the development of new industries, and through these efforts, offer a world-class educational environment. In addition to providing innovative solutions to problems through the application of ICT, we will continue to work hard to open up a new era of academically rooted innovation befitting a university and to contribute to the welfare, safety, and security of human beings and society by realizing a new paradigm of communications that enriches people’s lives.
Since its foundation in 1935, RIEC has made a series of pioneering achievements in laying the foundations of modern information and communication technology, including magnetic recording systems, semiconductor devices, and optical communication technologies, and has played a world-leading role. We cover the research fields of materials, devices, communication systems, computing systems, networks, human and software engineering and sciences related to ICT to promote the fusion of research fields between hardware and software sciences and the integration of the arts and sciences.
As of April 2023, RIEC is organized into three research divisions, two laboratories, and two centers. These have different scopes in terms of research period: the research divisions focus on long-term projects, the laboratories on medium-term projects, and the centers on short-term projects including practical applications through industry-academia collaboration. In 2021, RIEC established a future vision, looking at 30 years from now, for the research divisions with three pillars of research areas for the realization of rich human-oriented communication: transcendent computational capability, information infrastructures as natural as breathing, and creation of super-intelligent systems based on human understanding. In line with these three pillars, we have reorganized and strengthened the existing four research divisions into three research divisions: Computing System Platforms Division, Information Communication Platforms Division, and Human and Bio Information Systems Division. The two laboratories are the Laboratory for Nanoelectronics and Spintronics, which is carrying out comprehensive and intensive research into nano-technology-based materials (spintronics, etc.) and device technologies, and the Laboratory for Brainware Systems, which aims to build intelligent integrated systems that break down technological barriers in current information processing capacity, such as power consumption and computing power barriers. The two centers are the Research Center for 21st Century Information Technology (IT21 Center), which promotes short-term research projects collaborating with inside and outside researchers, and the Interdisciplinary ICT Research Center, a new research center established in April 2023 supported by special funding received from FY2023 from the government with the aim of exploring and developing the essence of rich human-oriented communication.
In FY2010, RIEC was certified by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) as a Joint Usage/Research Center for collaborative research in information and communications technology and is engaging in joint research projects with outside researchers. We are funding a variety of joint research projects, promoting collaboration with researchers from national and private universities and private-sector companies, leading to many positive results. We have successfully completed the third medium-term target period (from FY2016 to FY2021) and as a result of the term-end evaluation, RIEC received approval to continue its activities. Since FY2022, we have been promoting the 4th medium-term plan.
In FY2023 as well, we have adopted 130 joint research projects, including projects prioritizing collaborations with industry, international expansion, and young researchers, and further progress is expected in these areas.
Since 2014, with special funding from the government (for six years), we have been promoting the Brainware LSI Project, which aims to create new paradigm brain-inspired LSIs with human-like judgment. This program is creating advanced information-processing LSIs, such as those of artificial intelligence, which can be used to apply artificial intelligence to real-world situations. Within the university, we are also expanding R&D projects centered around RIEC. First, when Tohoku University received confirmation of its Designated National University title in 2017, spintronics research, which has been led by RIEC members, was recognized as one of the four top-level research fields of Tohoku University. The Center for Spintronics Integrated Systems, which executed the FIRST and ImPACT programs, has been reorganized and renamed the Center for Science and Innovation in Spintronics for further development through cooperation among three centers: the Center for Spintronics Research Network for collaboration with Japanese universities, the Graduate Program on Spintronics for educating global leaders in spintronics, and the Center for Innovative Integrated Electronic Systems for enhancement of global competitiveness in the field of next-generation integrated electronics systems. Second, in October 2011, in response to the Great East Japan Earthquake, Tohoku University resolved to set up the Research Organization of Electrical Communication under the leadership of RIEC. As one of the eight major projects underway at Tohoku University’s Institute for Disaster Reconstruction and Regeneration Research, research and development for the creation of disaster-tolerant ICT is being carried out through collaboration between industry, academia, and government. Third, in 2016 we established the Advanced Institute of Yotta Informatics, where interdisciplinary research groups conduct projects for handling the “quality” of information to meet challenges beyond big data involving researchers from both arts and sciences fields. The institute has been supported by the government since FY2018. We have also continued our pioneering efforts in the field of information and communication by conducting five JST-CREST projects, including two large projects newly adopted in FY2023 (an AI hardware-related NEDO project and Beyond 5G-related NICT project), three JST-Sakigake projects, two NEDO projects, four MIC projects, and two NICT projects. Furthermore, the RIEC 2nd Building reconstruction project was adopted in FY2021 and construction is currently progressing toward its scheduled completion in FY2025. In this building, we plan to strongly promote the strengthening of industry-academia collaboration by creating spaces with novel concepts, such as open innovation spaces.
With the reorganization of RIEC and establishment of the new center in FY2023, we are all working hard to realize further development toward the creation of a new paradigm of communications and would very much appreciate your continued support and encouragement.
Prof. Takahiro Hanyu, Director
Research Institute of Electrical Communication (RIEC)
