SBI Neo Financial Services and AntWorks™ Announce Joint Venture to Provide Intelligent Automation to ASEAN Market Through SBI Antworks Asia

SINGAPORE and TOKYO, February 12, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --

Global provider of artificial intelligence and intelligent automation solutions, AntWorks™ powered by fractal science, has today announced a joint venture with SBI Neo Financial Services Co., Ltd., to supply AntWorks'™ integrated intelligent automation platform to East Asia and South East Asia markets.

SBI Neo Financial Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SBI Holdings Inc, headquartered in Tokyo, today announced it has entered into an agreement with AntWorks™, Head Quartered in Singapore, to establish SBI Antworks Asia. This joint venture is designed to support the sale and introduction to East Asia and Southeast Asia of AntWorks' operational automation platform, which integrates Cognitive Machine Reading and RPA capability with artificial intelligence (AI). The SBI Group will hold a 60-percent interest in SBI Antworks Asia.

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In August 2018, SBI invested US$15m in AntWorks through the SBI AI&Blockchain Fund managed by SBI Investment. In stark contrast to more traditional OCR tools, the Generation 2.0 intelligent automation platform developed and provided by AntWorks leverages Cognitive Machine Reading as the basis of its data ingestion engine. This allows data to become ingested in any form (including structured, semi-structured, unstructured, inferred and images) which radically transforms the quality and accuracy of data being used at the start of the automation process. This is just one of the platform components which AntWorks™ believes enables them to deliver significantly improved results than traditional RPA and OCR tools (now increasingly becoming referred to in industry as Gen 1.0 technology).

AntWorks' Gen 2.0 solutions integrate a full suite of AI technologies, including machine vision, machine learning, deep learning and natural language modelling (NLM), natural language processing (NLP) and natural language generation (NLG). The principles of the platform are all underpinned by fractal science, spearheaded as breakthrough alternative to neural science for the deployment of process automation by AntWorks.

AntWorks solutions are designed to tackle even difficult challenges which conventional technologies cannot, as evidenced by the fact that the firm's fractal theory-based AI technology allows even non-unified format documents to be read.

SBI Antworks Asia will enter into an exclusive business alliance agreement with AntWorks™ on operations in East Asia and Southeast Asia, thereby assisting the sale and introduction of its products.

Japan must pursue operational rationalization urgently as a nation that is now beset with labor shortages against the backdrop of a shrinking working-age population. In this respect, by leveraging AntWorks™ products, SBI Antworks Asia will provide solutions for such social challenges, while assisting customers who want to rationalize operations.

SBI Neo Financial Services Representative Director, Yoshitaka Kitao, commented, "AntWork's platform uses AI for CMR and RPA on their platform which enables the machine to recognize unstructured data. This Intelligent AI is the next generation RPA technology. It will realize the true automation in the office just like it happened in factories in Japan in 1950's and 1960's. Japan is now facing the labor shortage because of the decrease in population. Intelligent RPA is the solution to this situation. SBI Neo Financial Services is going to deliver this technology not only to the regional banks but also other companies in Japan. Moreover we are ready to bring this intelligent RPA to Asian countries through our bases in the region. This will accelerate the growth of Asian countries by increasing the productivity of operations in companies."

AntWorks CEO and Co-Founder, Asheesh Mehra, commented, "I am very excited with signing of this Joint Venture as it strengthens the relationship between SBI and AntWorks™. This partnership will enable the accelerated penetration of the East Asia and Southeast Asian marketplaces for AntWorks and will bring to the forefront the strength of the AntWorks'™ ANTstein™ Enterprise Intelligent Automation Platform." Mr. Mehra also added, "With the deep relationships SBI hold, this partnership will enable AntWorks™ to be part of the significant change that will take place, both at an enterprise-level, and in future back office operations, in delighting its customers in the region using a digital workforce."

About SBI Neo Financial Services  

SBI Neo Financial Services is an affiliate company of SBI Holdings, and aims to drive further diffusion of innovative technologies towards various users, such as regional financial institutions of Japan through SBI Group's experience and insight on online finance. SBI Neo Financial Services' objective is to contribute to regional revitalization through relationships developed between regional financial institutions and the SBI Group, by utilizing innovative services of SBI Group companies and Fintech companies from around the world.

About AntWorks  

AntWorks^[TM] are a global, artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligent automation company; creating new possibilities with data through digitization, automation, and enterprise intelligence. As the World's only platform that understands every data type, ANTstein™ digitizes every bit of information for a diverse range of industries. By creating human-like bots in a low-code / no-code environment, ANTstein™ innovates new ways to automate complex processes. AntWorks' solutions power up enterprises with accurate insights through an integrated, intelligent, technology stack that automates and learns independently. Put simply, it accelerates the new, constantly. ANTstein™ is also the first and singular Enterprise Intelligent Automation Platform powered by fractal science principles and pattern recognition.