Toppan Inc., a printing company, is planning to release an AI smartphone app that could help decipher Japanese cursive and potentially billions of historical documents.

The app’s beta version is set for release later this month, while the full version is scheduled to become available to the public this March.

Historical documents and manuscripts are often written in kuzushiji, a form of Japanese cursive. This poses a hurdle to interpretation and usage, not only to researchers but also to other people who have old letters and diaries stored at home. Today, roughly 0.01% of Japan’s population can read cursive.