Ai is a female chimpanzee

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...

 currently living at the Primate Research Institute

Primate Research Institute

The Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University is a national research center for the study of primates. It was founded in 1967 by primatologists Kinji Imanishi and Junichiro Itani. The Institute works toward understanding the biological, behavioral and socioecological aspects of primates, and the...

 of Kyoto University

Kyoto University

, or is a national university located in Kyoto, Japan. It is the second oldest Japanese university, and formerly one of Japan's Imperial Universities.- History :...

 (acronym KUPRI). She is known for being the principal subject of the Ai project, a research program started in 1978 which is aimed at understanding chimpanzee cognition

Cognition

In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...

 through computer interface experiments. The Ai project includes tests for numerical competency, color-to-symbol matching ability, and audio-to-image matching and recognition. Over the years, the Ai project has grown to include a 14 member community of chimpanzees (including Ai's 9 year old son, Ayumu

Ayumu (chimpanzee)

Ayumu is a chimpanzee currently living at the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University. He is the son of chimpanzee Ai, and has been a participant since infancy in the Ai Project, an ongoing research effort aimed at understanding chimpanzee cognition...

) who reside in a state-of-the-art facility at KUPRI.