Japanese AI developer Alt goes bust after accounting fraud
The court accepted the application, according to the Tokyo-based company's announcement Wednesday. Alt left debts totaling about ¥2.4 billion ($16.1 million) and aims for its rehabilitation by finding a sponsor entity that will take over its operations. Alt's line of business includes a service to create meeting summaries using AI.
The company went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Growth section for startups in October 2024, 10 years after its establishment in 2014.
However, suspicions of accounting fraud surfaced at the company in April this year.
On Monday, Alt said in an investigation report that the company padded its sales in the four years through December 2024 by a total of ¥11.9 billion. The firm's founder, Kazutaka Yonekura, resigned as its president the same day.
A third-party panel's investigation has found that Alt also falsified documents it submitted to the TSE for the exchange's examination of its stock listing application.
On Wednesday, the TSE decided to delist Alt on Aug. 31.
At a press conference Wednesday, Hiromi Yamaji, group CEO of Japan Exchange Group, the operator of the TSE, harshly criticized the series of wrongdoing by Alt.
The irregularities are "very regrettable as they shaken the credibility of the initial public offering and audit systems," Yamaji said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Mainichi
3 hours ago
- The Mainichi
'Speaking' tactile sidewalks enrich lives of visually impaired in Japan
KANAZAWA, Japan (Kyodo) -- Tactile paving for people with visual impairments in Japan has recently been enhanced with audio guidance, as the developers of the technology aim to improve the lives of people with partial sight and assist sighted tourists. The new braille blocks are marked with black stickers in special patterns. By scanning the coded blocks with a smartphone camera and app, users can listen to audio information about the location and its surroundings. "There is a zone where people can enjoy the smells of earth and young green leaves on the right side, about 2 meters ahead," a voice from a smartphone said as Ikuko Kawaguchi tried the system in a trial held in Kawasaki, near Tokyo, in April. "I'm excited that I can visualize the scenes," said the visually impaired 61-year-old, adding, "The system encourages me to go out alone." The system was jointly developed by the laboratory of Kanazawa Institute of Technology professor Kunio Matsui and Tokyo-based W&M systems LLC. Those behind the technology hope it can also be made available to tourists and foreigners as they walk the streets of Japan, whether they are sighted or not. The special braille blocks were first introduced in Kanazawa, central Japan, in 2019 and have since been installed in other areas, appearing at train stations, pedestrian streets and public offices in 10 prefectures, including Tokyo and Osaka, as of April. The developers plan to make the system available in multiple languages and are considering enabling it to answer questions by incorporating generative artificial intelligence capabilities. "We want more people to understand the importance of braille blocks as we enhance their functions and expand their use," Matsui said.
NHK
4 hours ago
- NHK
4 workers rescued but unconscious afer falling into manhole in Saitama
Four workers fell into a manhole in Gyoda City, Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo on Saturday morning. Fire department officials say all of the workers have been rescued but are unconscious. A man called the fire department, saying the workers had disappeared into a manhole while inspecting a sewage pipe. Police say the manhole is 60 centimeters in diameter and more than 10 meters in depth. They say it is believed that one worker fell into the hole and was followed by the three others who tried to save him. City officials say the workers were conducting an emergency inspection of sewage pipes that the central government had ordered after a massive road cave-in occurred in Yashio City, Saitama Prefecture, in January.
Japan Times
6 hours ago
- Japan Times
The AI race has Big Tech spending $344 billion this year
If there's any lesson to take from the spending plans issued by the world's largest technology companies over the past two weeks, it's to never underestimate the fear of missing out. Microsoft, which set a $24.2 billion capital spending record last quarter, plans to drop upward of $30 billion in the current period. similarly spent $31.4 billion last quarter, almost double what it dropped a year ago, and is maintaining that level of investment. Google owner Alphabet raised its capital expenditures guidance this year to $85 billion. Then there's Meta Platforms: The social networking giant lifted the low end of its forecast for 2025 capital expenditures and projected that costs will continue to grow at an even faster pace next year. Altogether, the four companies are expected to spend more than $344 billion for the year, with much of it going to the data centers necessary to run AI models. "We've basically tripled capex investment in cloud due to AI,' Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mandeep Singh said. The emphasis from virtually every company executive during this earnings season was on investing as quickly as possible to get ahead. "We need the teams to execute at their very best to get the capacity in place as quickly and effectively as they can,' Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood told analysts in a call Wednesday. Susan Li, Meta's CFO, said the goal of its own spending is to secure the advantage "in developing the best AI models.' Wall Street's response has been mixed. Meta was rewarded — in large part because the company posted a strong second-quarter sales beat and issued a rosy revenue forecast, signaling that the billions it's spending on AI are paying off. "On advertising, the strong performance this quarter is largely thanks to AI unlocking greater efficiency and gains across our ad system,' Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said on an analyst call. Zuckerberg has plans to build several massive data centers and has been luring top AI researchers with compensation packages valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. The company recently restructured its internal AI division, now referred to as Meta Superintelligence Labs, in an effort to build human-level AI capabilities and apply that technology across its products. Shares of the company have gained more than 8% since it reported earnings on Wednesday. Amazon, on the other hand, failed to convince investors that its lavish spending has been worth it. The stock was down as much as 8.1% on Friday after the company reported tepid sales from its cloud division. The results were "especially disappointing' given the strong performance from Google's and Microsoft's own cloud services, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during an event at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, in September 2023. | Reuters And the ongoing capital costs won't help. The operating margin for Amazon's cloud unit will continue to face pressure "through 2026 as capital spending ramps up,' BI analysts Poonam Goyal and Anurag Rana said. Alphabet's shares are essentially unchanged from last week when it reported earnings and issued guidance. The company raised its capital expenditures outlook by $10 billion and expects to ramp up spending even more in 2026. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai explained that the investments are necessary to keep up with customer demand. "Obviously, we are seeing strong momentum across our portfolio, and especially in cloud,' Pichai told analysts in a call on July 23. "It's a tight supply environment, and we are investing more to expand.' Nikhil Lai, an analyst at Forrester, put it another way: If Google wants to keep up with rivals, he said, it has little choice but to follow suit: "Google's hand is forced by OpenAI to spend tremendously on AI's infrastructure and applications.' Microsoft tied its AI investments directly to a 39% jump in sales for its Azure cloud-computing division, which came in ahead of analysts' estimates. "We continue to lead the AI infrastructure wave and took share every quarter this year,' Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said in a call with analysts on Wednesday. "In Microsoft's case, the returns are good,' Gil Luria, an analyst with DA Davidson & Co., said in an interview. The only question now is whether Microsoft's customers are in turn seeing a decent return on investment, he said. "That's where the test will be,' he said. "If they don't, they're not going to increase that spend next year.' Apple's capital plans pale in comparison to its Big Tech peers. But the iPhone-maker did raise its spending estimates, tying much of the increase to AI efforts. Apple's property, plant and equipment investments totaled $9.47 billion in the nine months ended June 28, up nearly 45% from a year ago. "You are going to continue to see our capex grow,' Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh told analysts on Thursday. "It's not going to be exponential growth, but it is going to grow, substantially. And a lot of that's a function of the investments we're making in AI.'
