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PM Modi Meets NEC Chairman In Tokyo: Lauds NEC's Accomplishments In Building A Connected & Smarter India

 On 24th May, PM Narendra Modi met the Chairman of NEC Corp. Nobuhiro Endo, in Tokyo. The PM was in Tokyo at the invitation of Japanese PM Fumio Kishida to participate in the third Quad Leaders' Summit.  

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Published 2 years ago on Jun 06, 2022 6 minutes Read
Photo: Twitter/PMO India

On 24th May, PM Narendra Modi met the Chairman of NEC Corp. Nobuhiro Endo, in Tokyo. The PM was in Tokyo at the invitation of Japanese PM Fumio Kishida to participate in the third Quad Leaders' Summit.

At the meeting with the Japanese technology leader NEC, PM Modi and Mr. Endo exchanged views on India's digital transformation roadmap, emerging technologies for smart cities, and the critical role that NEC has and will play in creating a truly connected and smarter India. In a statement, India's Ministry of External Affairs stated that "The Prime Minister appreciated NEC's role in India's telecommunication sector, especially in undertaking Chennai-Andaman & Nicobar Islands (CANI) and Kochi-Lakshadweep Islands (KLI) OFC projects. He also highlighted investment opportunities under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme."

They elaborated on the incredible potential of new and emerging technologies for smart cities, logistics, and establishment of digital infrastructure. Additionally, the NEC chairman and PM discussed ongoing reforms to enable the ease of doing business in India and how technology as a tool is establishing good governance, unlocking human potential, and ultimately leading to ingenuity of Indian businesses and citizens. Furthermore, Mr. Endo highlighted the global tech leader's India plans and the journey the brand wishes to undertake to fuel digital transformation across sectors in India.

Bolstering a digital economy

NEC, the ICT behemoth, a world leader in biometrics, 5G ORAN, AI, and other leading technologies, has been working relentlessly in making the digital revolution a reality. For the past 122 years, it has brought innovation in solutions ranging from satellites to submarines and everything in between. Headquartered in Japan, NEC's India operations began in the 1950s, to lay the foundation of India's digital roadmap, much before the vision of Digital India even came into being. Since then, NEC Corporation India (or NEC India) has been working as a silent crusader in shaping the country's digital transformation journey for over seven decades now.

NEC's meaningful innovation and technology solutions across sectors such as telecommunications, transportation, logistics, healthcare, citizen services, and manufacturing have empowered more than a billion Indian lives. 

Overall, NEC India's vision aims to give momentum to Government’s initiatives such as Digital India,  Make in India, Atmanirbhar Bharat, and others.

Leading India's connectivity revolution

NEC has made incredible contributions to India's networking infrastructure. In August 2020, amidst the challenges posed by the first wave of Covid-19 pandemic, NEC India completed the mammoth Chennai-Andaman (CANI) 2,314 km long (with 100Gb/s optical waves) undersea optical fiber cable project - which was inaugurated by Honorable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi back then. This marquee project has enabled the implementation of e-Governance initiatives, e-commerce, virtual education and boosted tourism to the island. It is a significant milestone in NEC's journey of partnering with the Government of India to realize its vision of a truly connected India. This is a testament of the Fortune 500 giant’s capabilities in building ultra high-tech optical fibre connections and is amongst the global leaders that supply underwater submarine cables connecting different countries.

NEC understands that connectivity is at the core of not just India’s but world’s growth and development. To this end, the ORAN pioneer aims to combine its global leadership and understanding of the local market to be a front runner in India's 5G hardware and software development. As part of the company's plans of "In India, for India and from India, for Global," NEC's first open RAN laboratory was inaugurated in December 2020 in Chennai to contribute to the bustling 5G opportunity actively.

Fast-tracking India's digital transformation journey

NEC works closely with the Indian Government on its flagship Smart Cities initiative vision. NEC's integrated command and control centre is the backbone of the smart city, interconnecting the embedded sensors around city surveillance and city management. Over the years, NEC India has spearheaded various smart city projects in Ahmedabad, Surat, Dombivili, Trivandrum amongst others.

The company has helped authorities attain the desired ROI and improve efficiencies with projects like BRT (Bus Rapid Transit). The organization is also responsible for giving 1.3 billion Indians a digital identity through the Aadhaar project. More and more travelers now are experiencing NEC's sophisticated contactless technology that eases boarding processes in a post-pandemic world at Varanasi, Pune, Vijaywada, and Kolkata airports. In one or the other way, all Indian citizens have been touched by the breakthrough innovations introduced by NEC India.

Powering the Next Normal

As an organization that has always sought to resolve real-life problems through its technology solutions, NEC India is committed to enabling and empowering authorities and businesses to prepare for the 'Next Normal' in the best possible way with the aforementioned insights that are especially designed for the Indian demographic.

Overcoming the uncertainties posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, NEC India leveraged its cutting edge technology to quickly curb and monitor the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Gurgaon Municipal Development Authority and Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation in Maharashtra. Last year, a NEC biometric centre powered with an automatic fingerprint identification system(AFIS) for criminal investigation was successfully launched in Karnataka, CDAC, and the Kerala Police.

NEC brings unmatched visibility into logistics operations, streamlining pre-shipment inspection for the logistics, distribution, as well as warehouse industries to help control inventory, manage operations more efficiently and optimize supply chains. It currently provides technology for the visibility of 100% of India's EXIM container volume.

Making India a hub for global innovation 

NEC helps to create societies for the future where everyone has equal opportunities to grow and flourish, aligned to its purpose of 'Orchestrating a brighter world.'

Through the "India Go Big" initiative, NEC aims to leverage its solution development & delivery capability from India to aid global business growth and serve as a worldwide delivery hub for offshore support & product development.

In fact, many of the cutting-edge technologies for global project deployments are being developed at NEC's COEs in India. NEC's mission is to create more products and solutions in India leveraging Japan's technical know-how to deliver “Made in Japan” quality solutions out of India. Hence, it plans to set up Global Centers of Excellence (COE’s) in India across multiple domains.

NEC's R&D lab in Bengaluru, one of the 8 in the world, is another excellent hub of innovation for NEC, helping develop innovative solutions to solve the most complex social challenges in India and around the world.

Fueling India's next phase of growth

NEC demonstrates the extraordinary impact of technological innovation combined with human intervention for a bigger purpose, which forms the core of its solutions. Owing to its rich legacy underpinned by the agility and resilience of its workforce, the Indian arm continues to stay relevant and dedicated to contributing to the development of safe and secure societies for the benefit of Indian citizens.

NEC's strategy is to bet big on its India talent and identify people in-house to learn from global teams. The other part of its transformation growth curve is the ability to meet customer cost requirements through scalable and optimized offerings brilliantly. NEC India’s focus is tailored to suit the pace at which the country’s aggressive digital transformation is shaping up. And the multi-billion-dollar Japanese tech giant is committed and invested in shaping the Indian dream of self-reliance with its tech.