Japanese conglomerates Fujitsu, FANUC, and NTT Communications have established DUCNET, a new company and joint venture to accelerate digital transformation in the manufacturing industry. 

The joint venture known as DUCNET will offer cloud services to manufacturing firms to build a secure and efficient cloud ecosystem.  

Talks of a joint venture between the three industrial and tech players began back in September 2019 with the announcement of Digital Utility Cloud, a services platform initiative for driving digital transformation in the manufacturing industry. 

Faced with the uncertainty and the global shift to remote work caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as rapid adoption of Industry 4.0 technology has shown the need to realise such a collaboration to enable the manufacturers to strengthen their global competitiveness and resilience. 

DUCNET will further contribute to the strengthening of manufacturing capabilities using Digital Utility Cloud, with the aim of building an ecosystem in which participating companies, including machine manufacturers, machine users, trading companies, and IT vendors, can be a service provider and a service user. 

DUCNET will be headquartered in Ota Ward, Tokyo and is scheduled to open for business in November 2020. It is expected to offer cloud services by April 2021. 

The capital for the joint venture totals US$2.3 million (250 million yen), with Fujitsu taking a 40% stake, while FANUC and NTT Communications will both take a 30% stake.

Got a story, opinion or more information on this article? Contact us at editor@w.media.
And sign up to the W.Media Newsletter to get the latest data center, cloud and cybersecurity updates!