Selected Papers: Research Results of a Five-Year

Review of NTT-MIT ResearchCollaboration
Noboru Sugamura†
Abstract
This paper outlines the recently completed five-year collaboration between NTT and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that started in July 1998. Its objectives are described from the viewpoint of R&D in NTT, and the joint research projects and project management system are explained.

1. Introduction
In June 1998, NTT and the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology (MIT) signed a five-year collaborative
research agreement. Research began in July 1998 andwas completed in June 2003. The two principal aims
were to study the new world order of communications
and computers and to build a foundation for growth in
the global field of information and communications.
This paper introduces the other five selected papers inthis issue that describe in greater detail the specificresults of the collaborative research. It outlines theoverall collaborative research project and the activities conducted over the past five years under the termsof the agreement.
2. NTT’s role and activities
NTT’s predecessor, NTT Public Corporation,
placed special emphasis on R&D. Consequently, itachieved exceptional research results and developed
outstanding human resources in the fields of information and communications. That same spirit has continued in all of NTT’s activities since the company
was privatized in 1985, and NTT has promoted R&Dby making it the driving force of its business. The aimof R&D at NTT has been to develop practical technology to directly support the company’s telecommunications business, with emphasis on research thatwill be useful in developing future technology. Astime passed, however, the R&D fields became greatly diversified, making it increasingly difficult for theR&D division of a single organization to cover all relevant research domains. Strategic research allianceswith other organizations came to play an importantrole, and collaborative research with universities now
accounts for a high percentage of such research. With
this background, NTT selected two research laboratories at MIT as partners for collaborative research:the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and theArtificial Intelligence Laboratory (AI Lab), which
are the world’s foremost research laboratories in thefields of information technology and computer science. NTT researchers began working in collaboration with researchers from these two laboratories
from July 1998 [1]. LCS is well known for its pioneering research in communications and computersin such areas as mathematics and computation, MULTICS (a multilingual conversational system), theRSA security system, Ethernet, spreadsheets, and theWorld Wide Web. The AI Lab, meanwhile, established in 1959 by two giants in the artificial intelligence field—Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy—
has formulated many of the basic concepts underlying the field of artificial intelligence. One of the guiding principles at LCS and the AI Lab has always been
not to stop merely at academic results but also todevelop products and provide actual services basedon their research. For NTT, which for many years has
aimed at research that can be applied in practical use,
LCS and the AI Lab were ideal research partners.

† NTT Communication Science Laboratories
Soraku-gun, Kyoto, 619-0237 Japan
E-mail: sugamura@cslab.kecl.ntt.co.jp

10NTT Technical Review

Collaboration between NTT and MIT

3. Outline of the collaborative researchand higher performance of personal computers, NTTannounced its “Vision for a New Optical Generation”
in November 2002 [2]. The three main research aimsof the collaborative research between NTT and MIT
involved technologies that are essential for the nextgeneration of information/communications services
that NTT is working to provide. NTT’s decision fiveyears ago to move ahead with this type of collaborative research shows how farsighted and meaningful
the company believes this research must be. As partof the original agreement, NTT and the member companies of the NTT Group obtained free use of theintellectual property rights related to the collaborative research.
A Joint Steering Committee (JSC) was establishedto manage the collaborative project to make theresearch as effective as possible and to evaluate theresults (Fig. 1). It consisted of three members eachfrom NTT and MIT. They discussed and selected theresearch themes and, at the end of each fiscal year,evaluated the progress of the research projects withineach theme. The committee decided whether to continue ongoing projects and also chose the themes for
new projects. The members of the JSC changed overthe duration of the collaborative research agreement,
as shown in Fig. 2.
At the start of collaborative research, seven project

The collaborative research between NTT and MIT
extended over the five-year period from July 1998 toJune 2003, with the upper limit on research expenditures for the agreement’s duration set at $18 million.
The overall aim was to find unique, advanced
research results in the areas of information/communications, computers, and artificial intelligence thatwould have worldwide significance and make a major
contribution to society and business. Three specificresearch themes were established: 1) architectures,protocols, and application technologies for next-generation high-speed networks, 2) technologies forhuman-computer interfaces in a networked world,and 3) software technologies for large-scale networks
and human interface systems. Prior to this arrangement, NTT had already established a record of introducing pioneering concepts in such key areas as INS(1978), VI&P (1990), basic multimedia (1994), andinformation distribution (1998). After conducting
numerous experiments, NTT formed its vision ofwhat the information society should be in the 21stcentury. In the environment of rapid advances madein information/communications equipment and thecommunications infrastructure, such as the trend
toward broadband networks and the miniaturization
3 persons

3 persons

Joint Steering Committee

Overall management

Selection of project
themes

Evaluation

Project theme
proposals

Project AResearch
participation

Project B

Project theme
proposals

NTTMIT
Carrying outresearch•••Project Z

Fig. 1. Form of management for NTT-MIT collaborative project.

Vol. 1 No. 6 Sep. 2003

11Selected Papers

1998
Jun.

1999

Chairman

NT
T

2000
Jul.

2001

Koichi Matsuda

2002

2003
Apr.

NoboruSugamura

Kenichiro Ishii

MembersJul.

Yoh’ichi Tohkura

Haruhisa Ichikawa

ChairmanMIT

Rodney Brooks

Members

Michael Dertouzos

Victor Zue

Victor Zue

John Guttag

Fig. 2. Members of Joint Steering Committee.

themes were selected for study (Table 1). As seen inFig. 3, that number increased to the level where about
17 to 21 themes were usually being studied at onetime. Research results were announced four times
during the five-year period. Efforts were made eachtime to communicate the results to the member companies of the NTT Group (Fig. 4). Figure 5 shows thenumber of projects studied each year by category as
1998
Jun. Jul.

Signing ofagreement

1999
Mar. Jul.

Jan.

Meeting(Atsugi)

2000
Jul.

Meeting toannounce
research results(Musashino)
7 themes

Table 1. List of projects selected in fiscal 1998.
1. WIND: Wireless networks of devices
2. Multilingual conversational system
3. Self-updating software
4. Cryptography, info security and algorithms
5. Virtual viewpoint reality
6. Interactive sculpting of 3D computer graphics models
7. Image and video retrieval using a visual encyclopedia

Jan.

2001
Jul.

Meeting toannounce
research results(Kyoto)

Meeting toannounce
research results(Atsugi)

410

2002
Jul.

Jan.

2

975

2003
Apl.

Jul.

Meeting to End
announce
research results(Musashino)
1

5

4
72Fig. 3. Progress of research activities (numbers of projects and meetings to announce research results).

12NTT Technical Review

Selected Papers

Lecture by Dr. Rodney A. Brooks,Director, Al Lab.

Lecture by Dr. Kenichiro Ishii,Director, C.S. Lab.

NTT Group employees listen keenly to presentations

Fig. 4. Scenes from meeting to announce research results (January 25, 2001, Kyoto).

712121998

Humaninterface

335241999

Networks
63

43

2Computerapplications

2000

32

64

6

Information
processing

2001
Contents related
633432002

Fig. 5. Number of projects by research field.

Vol. 1 No. 6 Sep. 2003

13

Selected Papers

34 exchanges (55 man-days)

Long-term
stay at
MITLong-term
stay atNTT

1,282 man-days

49 man-days

NTT (Kyoto)

MIT (Boston)NTT (Atsugi)

22 exchanges (71 man-days)

Fig. 6. Exchange of human resources.

well as the overall balance of the number of projects
in each of the five general theme areas.
During the five-year period, many researchers fromboth NTT and MIT visited each other’s sites, withsome researchers staying for extended periods (Fig.
6). The network of human ties that was built up will
prove invaluable to both parties in the future and arecertain to contribute to the further development ofboth organizations.

References[1][2]

K. Matsuda, “NTT R&D and NTT-MIT Collaboration,” NTT R&D,
Vol. 49, No. 7, pp. 352-358, 2000 (in Japanese).
N. Wada, “Vision for a New Optical Generation,” NTT Technical
Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 6-17, 2003.

4. Conclusion
The five-year collaborative research project
between NTT and MIT was concluded at the end ofJune 2003 after achieving valuable research results
and an energetic exchange of human resources. The
benefits gained from the project will be put to gooduse directly and indirectly in the future in both NTT’s
research and business activities. One of the membersof the JSC from the beginning, Dr. Michael Dertouzos, a foremost communications researcher,passed away during the project in August 2001.
While expressing our sincere gratitude once again forDr. Dertouzos’s inspiration and guidance during thecourse of the collaborative research, we trust that hissoul rests in peace.
14Noboru Sugamura
Director, NTT Communication Science Laboratories.
He received the B.E., M.E., and Ph. D. degrees
in electrical engineering from Osaka University,
Osaka in 1974, 1976, and 1985, respectively. In
1976, he joined the Electrical Communication
Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone
Public Corporation (now NTT). He is a memberof IEEE, the Institute of Electronics, Information
and Communication Engineers of Japan, theAcoustical Society of Japan, the Information
Processing Society of Japan, the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, and the Human
Interface Society.

NTT Technical Review