Tokyo -- Fujitsu Limited, FANUC CORPORATION, and NTT Communications Corporation today announced the establishment of DUCNET Co., Ltd. a new company that will offer a cloud service to support digital transformation (DX) first in the machine tool industry and subsequently in the broader manufacturing industry. DUCNET will open for business in November 2020.

Faced with increasing uncertainty caused by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as current trends such as Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0, manufacturers are urgently seeking ways to strengthen their global competitiveness and resilience. This has prompted new demands for digital technology that drives efficiencies in internal operations, creates new value and improves service for customers, while accelerating the development of a service-led business model.

To this end, in September 2019 the three companies announced Digital Utility Cloud, a services platform initiative for driving DX in the manufacturing industry, which paved the way for the commencement of this joint venture ^[1] .

DUCNET will commence operations in November 2020, and is scheduled to start providing cloud services in April 2021. Going forward, DUCNET will contribute to further strengthening the manufacturing capabilities of companies that use Digital Utility Cloud with the aim of building an ecosystem in which each participating company, including machine manufacturers, machine users, trading companies, and IT vendors, can be a service provider and a service user.