Doctor Onishi's microchip

Doctor Onishi's microchip contains a lot of encrypted data, all coincidentally useful information for the Autobots, such as vital clues to finding the whereabouts of the O-Parts and Fortress Maximus. Luckily for everyone, he keeps it well hidden and locked with a cybernetic seal.

2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon
Under Megatron's psycho-probe, Doctor Onishi gave the Predacons a clue to the whereabouts of a cache of information — some Native American ruins. Sky-Byte was dispatched to search the ruins, while Megatron and the other Predacons provided a distraction for the Autobots. Unfortunately for them, Side Burn and Koji Onishi happened to be out exploring the self-same ruins and encountered the hapless shark. Optimus Prime, Prowl and X-Brawn were called in and soon chased Sky-Byte off, recovering a chest he had taken from the ruins. Within the chest, Koji found a portrait of himself with his father, and hidden in the frame was a microchip. Optimus quickly realised that this was what Sky-Byte must have been after.

When the Predacons later became interested in statues, Koji wondered if they were looking for the Cave of the Dragon, and T-AI confirmed that a reference to that location was stored on Doctor Onishi'd microchip. As it turned out, hidden inside the cave was an O-Part. T-AI was eventually able to unlock a cybernetic seal on the ship and decrypt some data which pointed to the location of Castle Peak, a site at which an Autobot ship had crashed decades ago. After reviewing the locations which the Predacons had been attacking of late, T-AI suggested re-analysing the data from the microchip to see if the locations had something to do with Doctor Onishi's research.

With more work, T-AI was able to obtain some vital information from the microchip — the coordinates of the area Onishi was excavating under Metro City right before he was kidnapped by the Predacons. When the Build Team dug their way to the location indicated, they discovered Fortress Maximus. After Doctor Onishi was recovered from the Predacons, the microchip was no longer as important.