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![\"NEC,](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/nec-mitsubishi-heavy-sign-japan-defense-partnership-mou.jpg\")
<\/p>\nKEY POINTSNEC and Mitsubishi Heavy sign memorandum for strategic defense partnership in JapanCooperation covers operational planning, command and control, and unmanned assetsPartnership aims to reinforce Japan’s defense industrial base and data and AI sovereignty
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NEC executive Hiroyuki Nagano and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries executive Masayuki Eguchi shake hands following the announcement of a strategic defense partnership.
\nNEC<\/p>\n
NEC and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries have signed a memorandum of understanding for a strategic partnership in the defense sector, the companies said on Sept. 2, as Japan steps up efforts to strengthen military capabilities and modernize defense systems.<\/p>\n
The two companies plan to deepen cooperation in operational planning, command and control, and unmanned assets. They said the partnership is intended to reinforce Japan’s defense industrial base and help establish data and AI sovereignty.<\/p>\n
As defense equipment becomes more integrated with cloud operations and AI technologies, NEC and Mitsubishi Heavy aim to combine their respective strengths to support new command-and-control systems and provide high-reliability products and services, according to the release.<\/p>\n
The companies framed the partnership against a rapidly changing security environment around Japan. The Ministry of Defense and the Self-Defense Forces are advancing a broader buildup and transformation of defense capabilities, including adaptation to what the release described as a new style of warfare using unmanned assets and AI.<\/p>\n
NEC President and CEO Takayuki Morita said the agreement marks an important step toward building sovereign and highly reliable defense systems based on Japanese technology and expertise. Mitsubishi Heavy President and CEO Eisaku Ito said the partnership would form an important foundation for such systems by combining the two companies’ advanced technologies and know-how.<\/p>\n
Japan has in recent years placed greater emphasis on bolstering domestic defense production capacity and reducing reliance on foreign technologies in critical areas. Command-and-control networks, cloud infrastructure and AI-enabled systems have become increasingly central to defense modernization, alongside investment in unmanned platforms.<\/p>\n
Mitsubishi Heavy is one of Japan’s largest defense contractors, while NEC has long supplied communications, radar, space and information technology systems to the sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KEY POINTSNEC and Mitsubishi Heavy sign memorandum for strategic defense partnership in JapanCooperation covers operational planning, command and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54000,53998,7933,8,3442,14547,6430,8974,53999],"class_list":["post-84819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-ai-sovereignty","tag-command-and-control","tag-defense-industry","tag-japan","tag-japan-defense","tag-ministry-of-defense","tag-mitsubishi-heavy-industries","tag-nec","tag-unmanned-assets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}