Company name
Mindware Research Institue Co,.Ltd
Paid-in Capital
10,000,000 JPY
Representative
Kunihiro Tada, Representative Director
Date of Incorporation
April 1, 2004 (Founded in 1988)
Office Location
Dai-ichi Central Building, 6-36 Honmachi, Kita-ku, Okayama City, 700-0901
Registered Address
Shimizu, Naka-ku, Okayama City, 703-8243
Contact
086-226-0028
Business Activities
Research and analysis regarding AI and data-tech businesses
Sales of data analysis software
History
1998
Established Mindware (as a gōshi-gaisha / limited partnership).
Drawing on practical research experience at a consulting firm, the company argued that business research requires the investigation of concepts—not just facts—and published the “Conceptual Research Method” in engineering and management journals. Research began on computerizing this method using Kohonen’s Self-Organizing Map (SOM).
2000
Released the Japanese version of Viscovery SOMine.
2002
Moved into “e-Plaza,” an incubation facility in Okayama Prefecture, and relocated to Okayama City.
2003
Formed partnerships with Addinsoft and Hugin Expert.
2004
Established Mindware (as a yūgen-gaisha / limited company) and transferred the business operations of the original limited partnership to the new entity.
2004
Relocated offices to Nakasange, Kita Ward, Okayama City.
2005
Formed a partnership with Dimension5 (Miner3D).
2008
Changed company name to Mindware Research Institute Co., Ltd.
2009
Relocated to the area in front of Okayama Station (Orix Okayama Building).
2011
Relocated to Terminal Square in Ekimoto-cho, Kita Ward, Okayama City.
2023
Discontinued distribution of XLSTAT—a product handled for 20 years—following the sale of Addinsoft.
2024
Launched qualitative data analysis solutions utilizing LLMs (Large Language Models) such as OpenAI’s models. The “Concept Map” tool—combining LLMs with SOM and BBN—realized the original goal of computerizing “conceptual research.”
Launched aicritique.org, an AI news summarization website.
2025
Developed “ConceptMiner” as a proprietary web application based on experiments conducted with Concept Map. Instead of SOM, it constructs a topological conceptual structure network using a proprietary combination of GNG (Fuzzy Growing Batch Neural Gas) and MST (Minimum Spanning Tree).
2026
Revamped the Concept Map UI layer as “ThinkNavi,” enabling exploration of the GNG+MST model via AI chat. ConceptMiner was positioned as the core technology for the development of enterprise AI systems, and ThinkNavi began to serve as a showroom for the technology. aicritique.org recorded 34,500 page views per day, growing into a website with a significant online presence.
Dai-ichi Central Building, 6-36 Honmachi, Kita Ward, Okayama City