SMBC and Fujitsu to partner on AI-driven forecasting services
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking is tapping Fujitsu's artificial intelligence models to bolster its advisory services for customers grappling with rising wages and materials costs.
The banking arm of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group is in talks to provide corporate client data to Fujitsu to run through the IT company's multimodal machine learning tools to make business forecasts, according to people familiar with the matter.
The AI-inferred demand predictions would help some of the bank's biggest customers make key decisions from staffing to procurement to capital spending and financing, the people said, asking not to be named discussing nonpublic information. The two companies will soon sign a basic agreement, they said.
The move would be a rare instance of a Japanese bank allowing another company access to sensitive customer data, such as store-by-store visitor and sales numbers. Corporate Japan is fighting labor shortages in a rapidly aging society as well as high materials prices from a depressed yen.
Representatives of SMBC and Fujitsu declined to comment.
For Fujitsu, the tie-up is a validation of a forecasting model central to its ambitions to expand in the lucrative AI and consulting arenas. The company, which has sold its chip packaging subsidiary Shinko Electric Industries and divested its stake in air-conditioning unit Fujitsu General, is undertaking a yearslong shift away from hardware.
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