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integrated at a massive scale in the forms of IoT, AI, and other technologies through the combination of cyberspace (i.e., virtual space) and physical space (i.e., real space). We have to be mindful that these technolo-gies must be operated in a human-centered, sustainable, and socially inclusive manner. In other words, these technologies should benet people, not machines, contribute to the development of a sustainable society and serve everyone equally. The power of ICT may potentially free people from spatial and temporal constraints and even from their own physical bodies.The NICT Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet) has been research-ing brain-machine interfaces. If this research effort bears fruit, we may be able to develop a social system in which people can have av-atar robots do work by simply thinking about the specic tasks they want to accomplish.CiNet is developing a SPA (sensing, pro-cessing, and actuation) model-based tech-nology capable of performing a sequence of tasks (i.e., sensing, inputting, and analyzing information and taking actions in physical space in response to the information). The current actuator technology—which per-forms actual work—is still far from practical use. I anticipate that this SPA component will play a particularly important role in the post-COVID-19 society.■ NICT’s technological contribution in the “with COVID-19” era──Does NICT have technologies that can be used to effectively cope with COVID-19 issues?TOKUDA We have several. The deep-ultra-violet (DUV) LED technology that NICT has developed is capable of emitting 265 nm DUV radiation, which can inactivate the COVID-19 virus 3 cm away in one second. NICT is currently developing a 500 mW high-output DUV-LED. This device can be used to inactivate viruses in hospitals by installing it on robots and allowing them to thoroughly inspect hospitals and inactivate viruses.NICT has also developed an 8K technolo-gy that can be used to monitor all activities in patients’ rooms. We are currently testing the usability of this technology in collaboration with several university hospitals. The use of this technology may also allow doctors to re-motely treat patients in intensive care units (ICUs) by monitoring all ICU activities at high resolution, making it a useful tool for local hospitals where ICU resources are often limited.In addition, NICT’s multi-language trans-lation technology has been used by pharma-ceutical companies developing COVID-19 vaccines. AstraZeneca PLC in the UK and NICT conducted an experiment in which this technology was used to translate a large volume of English documents needed for clinical trial application into Japanese. This technology allows them to complete the translation task in two weeks—twice as fast as the existing translation process AstraZen-eca had been using, which took 4 weeks to nish the same task. The higher translation speed of this technology may expedite the development of vaccines by pharmaceutical companies.Other technologies NICT is developing include: a privacy-protected data analysis technology, which enables the direct use of encrypted data in big data analysis and deep learning, thereby protecting personal infor-mation; an ultrahigh-speed communications technology, which uses terahertz waves to achieve data rates ranging from 100 Gbps to 1 Tbps—the communication speeds expected in 6G and later generation mobile communi-cations systems; and a three-dimensional holographic technology that can realize “ul-tra-realistic communication” where people can share the same space with others in re-mote locations. I believe that these technol-ogies will all be valuable for us coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.■ Vision of a society and issues in the post-COVID-19 era──What do you think our society will look like after the COVID-19 crisis is over?TOKUDA The US non-prot organization i4j (Innovation for Jobs) expects that adop-tion of AI by one company will lead to the adoption of AI by its competitors in an effort not to fall behind. Because a company’s val-ue is represented by the collective values of its employees, AI should be used with care not to socially exclude anyone, according to i4j. I believe that this concept exemplies the approach to developing a human-centered, inclusive society.──What types of technologies are needed to bring positive changes to society?TOKUDA Technological innovation must be accompanied by technological shaping—a concept that the social acceptance and un-derstanding of new technology should be increased before it is put into practice. Tech-nological researchers have traditionally giv-en 100% of themselves to technological de-velopment. However, even the most amazing technology is worthless unless it is socially accepted. The technology shaping concept needs to be integrated into technological de-NICT’s ICT Vision in Anticipation of the With-COVID-19 and Post-COVID-19 ErasHow NICT R&D Can Underpin COVID-19 Aected SocietyNICT NEWS 2020 No.62