(Telecompaper) Toyota said it will make an initial investment of USD 1 billion over the next five years into the development of artificial intelligence and robotics with the establishment of a new research institute. The new Toyota Research Institute (TRI) R&D enterprise will have its headquarters in Silicon Valley near Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. A second facility will be located near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The new company will begin operations in January. The USD 1 billion will go to the establishment and staffing of the facilities. It comes on top of the USD 50 million investment over the next five years with MIT and Stanford to establish joint fundamental artificial intelligence research centres at each university.