TOKYO – Artificial intelligence-based robots and systems in Japan are advancing to the point of being able to learn and replicate the skills of culinary professionals, even though it has been considered difficult to teach them as they rely heavily on experience and intuition.

The advent of deep learning has made it possible to automate these skills. Deep learning is an AI training method modeled after neural networks in the human brain.

AI learns features and common elements from large amounts of data, such as images and sounds, to classify and analyse new data with high accuracy.

This use of AI is expected to address labour shortages and the lack of successors in Japan’s food service industry.

On March 25, Western confectionery manufacturing company Juchheim in Kobe opened a training facility and showroom for Theo, an AI-equipped Baumkuchen-cooking robot, on the first floor of its headquarters in Chuo Ward, Kobe.

Baumkuchen was first introduced to Japan in 1919 by Karl Juchheim, the German pastry chef who founded the company.

The cake is made by broiling many thin layers of batter, added one at a time, on a rotating spit in an oven. Since broiling times vary depending on temperature and humidity, it is said to take several years to master cooking it.

Theo has learned the cooking techniques of the company’s skilled workers using cameras and image sensors so that it can determine the optimal conditions. It is said that it can be trained in a new technique in just a few days.

The company exhibited the robot system at the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo. Currently, the system is on loan to about 20 businesses nationwide. The company aims to increase this number to 100 by the end of this fiscal year.

Company president Hideo Kawamoto said, ...