Mitsui & Co., Ltd. ("Mitsui") and Fujitsu Limited ("Fujitsu") have established a joint venture company, Future City Solutions Limited, to cooperatively develop and manage smart community projects.
Future City Solutions will carry out smart community projects by combining Fujitsu's strengths in developing new services using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) with Mitsui's expertise of business development and its extensive business channels.
Background and Goals of the New Joint Venture
In recent years, smart communities have gained prominence as an important measure to solve a number of challenging social issues, such as global warming, increasing population density in urban areas, and ageing populations. Worldwide, the market for smart community projects is estimated to exceed one quadrillion yen in 2030. Furthermore, when considering the devastating effects of the Great East Japan Earthquake of last year, energy issues have garnered much attention, with smart community initiatives becoming a very important part of sustainable urban development in Japan.
Leveraging its time-tested ICT solutions, which have been cultivated over years of constructing industry and business systems, and employing the latest technologies, Fujitsu is actively engaging in smart community projects and efforts centered on regional revitalization through ICT. Fujitsu also plans to utilize its experience in these efforts in planning smart community projects outside of Japan.
Last year, Mitsui formed a joint venture with the UK-based, global engineering company Ove Arup & Partners International Ltd. Mitsui made this move after recognizing the importance of the ability to coordinate the interests of various stakeholders and of advanced engineering capabilities that bring together technologies from different fields, including energy, transportation, and buildings. By employing the advanced know-how gained from this experience, Mitsui is promoting the establishment of consortia both in and outside of Japan that connect businesses, governments, and academia, and is also actively engaged in building a new business in the field of smart communities.
Within this context, Fujitsu and Mitsui arrived at the conclusion that ICT know-how is an indispensable element in fully realizing smart communities, as it organically links the activities that make up the organization of a city, including transportation, buildings, and energy. They therefore decided to form a joint venture in order to leverage their respective areas of expertise, mutually complement each other, and generate synergy.
Initially, Future City Solutions plans to utilize business channels cultivated by Mitsui to offer the HEMS (*1) cloud-based energy management solution developed by Fujitsu to a wider market of residences in Japan. In addition, Future City Solutions is aiming to collect and compile data acquired from this solution to create customized new resident services, including in medical, social, and administrative areas. In the future, the joint venture plans to further develop business centered on providing regional energy management services.