Okaya & Co. Ltd., a Nagoya-based trading company for iron and steel, is set to open an office in Silicon Valley in California in the hope of teaming up with tech-savvy ventures there.

"I want to learn about new business models that utilize IT," said Okaya President Tokuichi Okaya.

He is especially interested in developing a self-driving truck convoy, where a driver mans the first truck while other trucks follow automatically, in a bid to address driver shortages.