NEC has unveiled its Predictive Robust Optimization Framework Technology, enabling software to make decisions and plans based on predictions, as part of its artificial intelligence (AI) technology for advancing big data analysis.
Akio Yamada, general manager of Knowledge Discovery Research Laboratories at NEC, said the new technology "makes advanced decisions, such as the formation of strategies and plans that would conventionally be carried out by humans, through software that uses predictions created by NEC's heterogeneous mixture learning technology."
When applied to water distribution planning based on water demand predictions, Yamada added, the new technology was successful in creating a highly accurate distribution plan, achieving a 20% reduction in the amount of power consumption required for purifying and distributing water.
In addition, when the technology was applied to product pricing based on product demand predictions, it was successful in producing a price strategy that would improve store sales turnover by 11% — a strategy that the technology produced both automatically and within the space of less than one second.
NEC plans to achieve commercial use of this technology during 2015.
One key feature of this new technology is that it produces plans that are both highly efficient and low-risk with respect to prediction errors.
Also, the Predictive Robust Optimization Framework technology produces optimal plans at ultra-high speed, considering the interrelationships of a large quantity of predictive formulas.