Japan is building a “Robot Taxi” for the 2020 Olympics

Japan is planning to use the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as an opportunity to show the world it’s still a tech leader. One of those efforts—if the technology and regulatory clearances shape out—could be an autonomous, self-driving taxi service, currently in development.

Tokyo-based Robot Taxi (link in Japanese) is still on track to start field tests of its driver-less taxi service in one region of Japan by the end of next March, CEO Hiroshi Nakajima revealed earlier this month.

The company, a joint venture between DeNA (one of Japan’s mobile internet pioneers) and ZMP (a robotics firm; tagline “Robot of Everything”) is not building its own cars from scratch. Instead, it’s focusing on adding driverless capabilities to existing cars and designing, creating, and marketing the taxi service.