NEC brings Japanese finance groups into Anthropic AI project
NEC says Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, MS&AD Insurance and other major firms will use Anthropic’s AI to improve services and cyber defences.
- NEC is bringing several major Japanese financial institutions, including Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and MS&AD Insurance, into its strategic AI collaboration with US start-up Anthropic.
- The partnership aims to leverage Anthropic's AI to create new customer services and improve productivity by simplifying internal business processes for the financial firms.
- A key goal of the project is to reinforce cybersecurity for the financial industry, addressing concerns that powerful AI models could be exploited for cyberattacks.
NEC Corp said on Thursday (June 11) that several of Japan’s biggest financial institutions will take part in its strategic artificial intelligence collaboration with US start-up Anthropic, as the electronics group seeks to apply AI more widely across finance while reinforcing protection against cyberattacks.
The participants include Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. and MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings Inc., along with Sumitomo Life Insurance Co., Daiwa Securities Group Inc., Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc., Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank and Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co.
Through Anthropic’s AI technology, the companies plan to work on creating new services for customers and raising productivity by simplifying and speeding up internal business processes at each organisation.
The project also comes amid concern over Anthropic’s powerful AI model, Claude Mythos, which has raised fears that it could be exploited to conduct cyberattacks, especially against the financial industry.
NEC and Anthropic announced their collaboration in April, with the two companies aiming to develop AI services suited to operations in the financial, manufacturing and local government sectors.
Japan’s three megabank lenders, MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. and Mizuho Bank, are believed to have obtained access to Claude Mythos.
The companies joining the NEC-Anthropic initiative are seeking to further strengthen their system security.
[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
