Interest

Bandai Namco Joins Forces with 13 Partners to Make Gundam Tech a Reality

In June 2021, Bandai Namco Group announced their sustainability project called "Gundam Universal Century Development Action." Initially a project to address population and environmental issues, it has now begun researching technologies in the Gundam franchise with four different teams.

╭━━━━━━━━╮
Official project decision
╰━ v ━━━━━━╯
#GOI Four official projects have been decided ❗️
❶ TEAM SPACE LIFE project
❷ Prototyping of a new pilot robot for social implementation of mobile suits
❸ Green Colony Project
❹ Beam Saber ~ Plasma Agriculture Project

Initially having 11 partners, Bandai Namco announced on October 27 that two more partners would be added for a total of 13. In the same announcement, Bandai Namco stated these 13 partners have been split into four teams: Team Space Life Project, Prototyping Project of a New Maneuverable Robot for Social Implementation of Mobile Suit, Green Space Colony Project, and Plasma Agriculture Project Inspired by Beam Saber. Each team focuses on different aspects of Gundam technologies and how they will be implemented in the world.

According to Team Space Life Project's homepage, the team will focus on creating a living space, controlling a comfortable environment, and sustainable resource circulation. They appear to be researching space colonies and adapting new medical technologies for humans to survive in those spaces.

Working in parallel with Team Space Life Project, Green Space Colony Project will provide an experimental environment to study the effects of gravity, closed environments, etc. that are unique to space and will help humans realize life in space. It is interesting since studies of artificial gravity can mostly only be done in space and studies of closed environments have been conducted in the past.

However, what fans really want to see are the Mobile Suits and some of the weaponry associated with them. The Prototyping Project of a New Maneuverable Robot for Social Implementation of Mobile Suit and Plasma Agriculture Project Inspired by Beam Saber have us covered. The former states that it aims to realize a “real MS (mobile suit)” and perform peaceful activities. It defines MS as a "controlled robot that enriches people's lives through interaction with people."

So, rather than making weapons of war, this team will focus on peaceful and practical applications of mobile suits. Likewise, the Plasma Agriculture Project Inspired by Beam Saber is not focused on creating weaponry. Rather, the team will study plasma for agricultural purposes. The team states that "plasma can now be maintained in the air, making it possible to control it gently so it does not get hot even when touched by people or plants. If this is applied to agriculture, we can expect to promote plant growth, improve plant immunity, and cultivate with reduced pesticides." How the team goes about this will be fascinating and hopefully yield amazing results.

Much like the Star Trek franchise, Mobile Suit Gundam has captured the imagination of people around the world. And while we have realized some technologies from Star Trek, Gundam is not quite there yet. But with the Gundam Open Innovation program, the future Gundam promises may not be that far off.

Sources: Bandai Namco (link 2, link 3, link 4, link 5, link 6, link 7), National Library of Medicine, Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web