On June 12, 2024, DENSO CORPORATION and NTT DATA have signed a memorandum of understanding to form a strategic partnership for software development. Through the agreement, the companies will deepen their collaboration on strategy, talent management, and technology as they jointly contribute to the advancement of Japan’s automotive industry and help address social issues. The partnership between DENSO, which has strengths in vehicle (in-car) technologies including in-vehicle software, and NTT DATA, which has strengths in outside-car technologies including cloud computing, aims to quickly and efficiently develop and offer in-vehicle software, which is becoming more prevalent and sophisticated in new vehicles. The two companies will also hire more advanced software engineers and upskill current engineers at both companies to create a globally deployable software-oriented mobility service platform, which will help support a mobility-centered society in the era of software-defined vehicles (“SDVs”).
As the first initiative, the two companies will jointly establish a software development system, as well as training engineers and increase the number of engineers to 3,000 engineers by 2030.
Recently, in response to automated driving, electrification, and artificial intelligence, including the rise of ever-connected cars, there is a need to enhance the ability to develop large-scale, advanced in-vehicle software and drastically increase development efficiency. Meanwhile, the concept of SDVs, in which software dramatically raises the value of vehicles and services, has become widely desirable, making software development increasingly important and necessitating closer linkage between vehicles and infrastructure. Accordingly, initiatives using cloud technology have become essential. With various social issues emerging in society, such as challenges relating to public transportation, population growth and driver shortages in the logistics industry, mobility services are needed to help solve these issues and an underlying platform needs to be built by connecting vehicles with the cloud via software and ensuring data linkage.
NTT DATA and DENSO have been collaborating with each other for many years. In 2016, DENSO took a stake in NTT DATA MSE, a software development company. In 2022, NTT DATA and DENSO launched an initiative to build an industry-wide ecosystem for electric vehicle batteries. The two companies have strengthened their ties by working on software initiatives together to transform the automotive industry.
Against this backdrop, the two companies have reached a basic agreement on a strategic partnership for software with the aim of accelerating conventional activities, developing the automotive industry and solving social issues. The synergies of the two companies will be maximized in terms of strategy, human resources, and technology by leveraging the cloud technology strengths of NTT DATA, which has worked in various industries, and the in-vehicle software strengths of DENSO, which has mainly focused on the automotive industry.
