Another trading giant, C Itoh & Co, is galloping into artificial intelligence and has formed a group to develop both hardware and software: it consists of six Itoh companies including Century Research Centre, Ito Chu Techno Science and Ito Chu Data Systems; these three have hitherto concentrated their efforts on applying artificial intelligence techniques to scientific calculations, factory and office automation respectively, but they now plan to develop marketable applications, and to train knowledge engineers.