The FIG and Fujitsu, a leading Japanese technology company, began collaborating in 2017 to create a judging support system that is "fair and accurate".

Data was collected at the 2017 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Montreal, Canada to assist with this.

It will now be tested at a yet-to-be determined World Cup event, with the new system supplementing the visual observations of judges by capturing the gymnasts' movements with 3D laser sensors, while providing numerical data. 

If successful, the system will feature at the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in German city Stuttgart next year.

The FIG and Fujitsu have created a new partnership programme to promote the deployment of the new system to its continental unions and member federations at their competitions.

They will also continue to collaborate to advance the use of technology in gymnastics, such as performance data for athletes or broadcasting content for spectators. 

In May 2016, Fujitsu teamed up with the Japan Gymnastics Association to conduct research into potentially using robots to help with scoring at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Judging has often been a contentious issue in the sport and controversy at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games prompted then-FIG President Bruno Grandi to oversee a scrapping of the "perfect 10" score.

American Paul Hamm won the gold medal in the men's all-around competition at the Games but only after South Korean bronze-medalist Yang Tae-young was incorrectly given a start value of 9.9 instead of 10.0 by judges in the parallel bars portion of the all-around event final.

The 0.1-point discrepancy was enough to drop Yang from gold to bronze and three judges were suspended as a result of the error.