Elith Inc. (Headquarters: 2-27-17 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Frontier Hongo I 6-A; Representative Director: Koki Inoue; hereinafter "Elith"), which specializes in AI safety and security, and Buffett Code Inc. (Headquarters: 1-14-2-301 Aobadai, Meguro-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Tomohiro Fukuda; hereinafter "Buffett Code"), which provides a structured database of corporate information spanning listed and unlisted companies, are pleased to announce the commencement of a business partnership aimed at providing decision-making AI that financial institutions can utilize safely. As their first initiative, the two companies will jointly develop an "M&A Sourcing AI" for regional financial institutions, private equity (PE) firms, and investment banks. ■ Background: "Can it be trusted?" and "Is the data prepared?" are the hurdles to AI adoption in financial institutions While expectations for AI utilization are high in financial institutions, many have not yet achieved advanced operations in core areas such as lending, credit assessment, M&A, and IPO discovery. We believe there are two main reasons for this: Financial institutions, being regulated industries, are extremely sensitive to risks such as AI misoutputs, information leaks, and accountability. Therefore, "can it be used safely and under control?" is a prerequisite for adoption. There is insufficient preparation of data that forms the basis of decision-making (especially for unlisted companies, there are persistent challenges such as information not existing, inability to compare, inability to search by quantitative conditions, and inability to detect changes, which are likely to be insufficient to support on-site decision-making). In addition, regional financial institutions are facing increasing needs for business succession and restructuring among local companies. According to estimates by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency (SMEA), approximately 2.45