On 10 July 2026, Corin Robertson CMG, HM Ambassador-Designate to Japan, visited Aioi R&D Lab – Oxford (“the Lab”), the AI research and development hub of Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Co., Ltd. Robertson is due to take up her post in August 2026, and the visit took place ahead of her departure for Japan.

To coincide with the visit, Keisuke Niiro, Representative Director, President of Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance, part of the MS&AD Insurance Group, also travelled to the UK to attend the meeting. Also in attendance were Professor Stephen Roberts and Professor Maike Osborne of the University of Oxford, who serve as advisors to the Lab, as well as Sebastian Leape, CEO of Natcap, and Dan Eichelsdoerfer, CEO of Macrocosm — both companies being capital alliance partners of the Lab.

During the meeting, the Lab presented its research and development in advanced fields, including AI for insurance and risk — such as fraud and anomaly detection — privacy-preserving technologies for large language models (LLMs), and quantum computing. In response, Robertson identified AI as one of the most important areas for the future of UK–Japan relations and expressed strong expectations for its development.

The visit builds on Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance's longstanding collaboration with the British Embassy Tokyo, through which the company has continuously promoted UK–Japan economic and technological cooperation, including by co-hosting business forums on themes such as AI, autonomous driving, and natural capital. In June 2026, Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance also took part in the UK-Japan Business Roundtable held at 10 Downing Street, and will continue to contribute to the further development of innovation and economic and technological cooperation between the UK and Japan through such initiatives.