KDDI offers integrated architecture for worldwide IoT

―From global connectivity to IoT services for vehicles, industrial machinery and more―

June 7,2018

KDDI CORPORATION promotes and aims to start offering KDDI IoT Worldwide Architecture from fiscal year 2019, that will provide support from global IoT connectivity to data analysis and everything inbetween as we contribute to digital transformation at global corporation clients in industries such as automotive and industrial machinery. This comprehensive base will help clients gain visibility and efficiency in operation, leading to their new value generation.

Advances in IoT technology in recent years have enabled businesses to increase their efficiency and productivity, but also have them seek out new ways to generate value. Research shows that IoT market would grow to generate 14 trillion Yen in Japan and 247 trillion Yen worldwide in 2020 [1]. Meanwhile, companies that operate globally currently have to either rely on international roaming services set up domestically, or to individually negotiate connectivity contracts with telecommunications carriers in each country to gain access to their IoT devices located overseas.
This makes it prohibitively difficult to handle connection management, which is the entry point to IoT utilization, in the same way that it is done within Japan.

In June 2016, KDDI and Toyota Motor Corporation announced that they would work together to advance the "Connected Car" by building a global communication platform that enables Toyota to develop common onboard telecommunications devices, which currently adhere to various sets of specifications for each countries. By remotely rewriting profile settings on the embedded SIM of these devices, clients can enjoy integrated connection management through direct connections to local carriers selected by KDDI, without having to handle the differences among the IoT management environment of different carriers.

The Architecture KDDI promotes this time enables integrated connection and fee status management of wide variety of "Things", from vehicles to industrial machineries such as construction machines, so that the clients can utilize the higher-quality communications at lower cost.

Not limited to providing connectivity, KDDI will link this connectivity with the IoT platforms of its own as well as with its partner companies' to provide support that ranges from IoT services to data analysis, thus contributing to the operational visibility across the borders for the clients. Specifically, in addition to linking with KDDI's IoT platform services such as KDDI IoT Cloud Standard, going forward KDDI will also implement the link with Lumada IoT platform provided by HITACHI LIMITED (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, President & CEO: Toshiaki Higashihara). realizing IoT services that meet the different requirements from different industries. KDDI also plans to further expand its partnerships like with Hitachi moving forward.

For the offering from fiscal year 2019, KDDI aims to connect telecommunications carriers from more than 50 countries to this Integration Base, that would cover more than 90% of Japanese corporations located worldwide [2].
As KDDI Group works to achieve its goal of integrating telecommunications and life design, it strives to be a company that is always offering exciting new ideas. We harness the power of diverse technologies such as IoT including this Architecture, and 5G to provide powerful support for the global business operations of our clients, generating new customer experience value.

• [1]

  JEITA "Survey of Trends in Emerging Fields 2017"

• [2]

  Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry "Survey on Overseas Business Activities 2016"