• Fujitsu has long been a developer and supplier of optical networking and mobile infrastructure technology to telcos
• But its units have worked in silos and focused on Japan and the US
• Now it is creating a new standalone subsidiary company, dubbed 1Finity, for its full telecom sector portfolio
• The new company will expand into new European and Asian markets

Fujitsu has decided to double down on the telecom tech sector with the formation of a new standalone subsidiary, 1Finity, that will be home to all of its optical and mobile hardware and software product lines and expand beyond Fujitsu’s current telecom infrastructure strongholds of Japan and the US.

Up to now, Fujitsu has played a key role in Japan’s mobile infrastructure sector and has been a competitive vendor in the North American optical networking sector via its Richardson, Texas-based Fujitsu Network Communications business (which has already been using the 1Finity name for its products). 

But it’s been expanding recently, gaining some traction in the virtual RAN (vRAN) and Open RAN sub-sectors of the mobile infrastructure market, forging partnerships with big names in the developing AI-RAN sector and looking ahead to 6G. 

Now the Kawasaki, Japan-based tech giant is creating 1Finity, which will comprise the “functions encompassing the development, manufacturing, sales, implementation support (design, construction), maintenance and operation of network hardware, primarily optical transmission equipment and O-RAN-compliant 5G base station equipment, as well as related software (Virtuora series), and the research function for 6G”. In addition to working with Japan’s operators on their next-generation mobile network infrastructure rollouts, it was notable that Fujitsu was also named as a partner for AT&T’s major Open RAN rollout in the US.

The company, which will be 100% owned by Fujitsu and officially up and running from 1 July, will have its own management team, headed up by president and representative director Masaaki Moribayashi, and about 1,800 staff. In the financial year that has just finished (at the end of March), the businesses being folded into 1Finity generated revenues of 110.6bn yen ($778m), though no details were shared about margins or profitability. 

Once it is incorporated, the new company plans to spread its wings. “Through 1Finity, Fujitsu aims to expand its share of the global network products market and achieve business growth. On the foundation of strengthening business in Japan and North America, 1Finity will actively expand into the European and Asian markets. While strengthening partnerships to expand sales networks, the company will increase its business domain by approaching new customer segments, such as cloud infrastructure companies,” noted Fujitsu, which clearly sees the same business opportunity with the hyperscalers and other datacentre operators as Nokia. 

Its aim is to develop “high-quality products that leverage its core technological capabilities, such as world-class, high-capacity optical data transmission and reception technology and the technological development of high-performance vRAN software that employs GPUs” and to “provide high value to its customers as a supplier of advanced network operations, utilising new technologies such as AI, and next-generation communication systems, such as 6G and IOWN [innovative optical and wireless network].” 

Fujitsu is one of the companies that features in our recent free-to-download Defining 6G Networks report, What do vendors want?, and it is one of the many Japanese companies involved in the development of IOWN technologies, about which you can find out more in this recent video interview – Is there a future for all-photonic networks?

Fujitsu’s decision to create 1Finity is part of the parent company’s medium-term management plan to create “a technology company that realises net positive through digital services by 2030”. Forming 1Finity will, Fujitsu hopes, “strengthen the network products business while clarifying management responsibility and accelerating the decision-making process towards the growth of global business and expansion. It is 1Finity’s goal to respond quickly to the rapidly changing market environment and create innovation through the timely provision of products that maximise the use of cutting-edge technology, shifting to software technology, and expanding into the AI datacentre market.”

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV