As it attempts to compete in its home territory of Japan, global KDDI has announced that it is taking a data-first approach to autonomous networks, creating the visibility, automation and intelligence it believes is needed to deliver better outcomes for customers.
The challenger Japan-based global telco has more than 100 million customers and provides mobile services, internet of things (IoT) services for connected cars, and datacentre connectivity, primarily in North America, Europe and Asia.
In recent years, KDDI has expanded beyond its core telecommunications business into areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), finance, energy, retail and cyber security. This has contributed to structural reforms across various industries.
KDDI, supported by Accenture, has engaged the Blue Planet division of advanced comms technology provider Ciena to help modernise its network operations and advance the company’s autonomous network journey.
The upgrades will aim to match the requirements of Japan’s network environments and multi-supplier ecosystem. The strategy is that with reusable, trusted automation assets and operational blueprints, the upgrades will build a scalable foundation for higher levels of network autonomy.
In particular, through Blue Planet’s cloud-native automation portfolio, the collaboration will support KDDI in expanding AI-driven operations with what is hoped to be greater accuracy, visibility and control across a common data-driven foundation.
For its part, KDDI will tap Accenture, bringing its transformation expertise to help KDDI deploy Blue Planet’s cloud-native automation portfolio and help KDDI to build an operational foundation that unifies network inventory, orchestration, assurance, optimisation and agentic AI. These are said to have been built around a shared source of trusted operational data.
The technology deployment followed a successful six-month trial conducted in KDDI and Accenture laboratory environments. It used Blue Planet’s AI Studio and the wider Blue Planet automation portfolio to validate multiple AI-powered and closed-loop use cases. These included natural language alarm search, closed-loop fault remediation, AI-driven alarm prioritisation, and automated service lifecycle management.
KDDI and Accenture will work with Blue Planet to configure and deploy automation capabilities, resource adapters, workflows and AI agents on the Blue Planet platform tailored to the requirements of Japan’s network environments and multi-supplier ecosystem.
The collaboration will apply reusable automation frameworks while establishing the data models, integrations and governance required to support trusted AI-driven operations at scale.
Beyond technology adoption, the collaboration will also look to establish a strategic delivery model to move forward KDDI’s autonomous network vision, using Blue Planet’s cloud-native automation and NetOps capabilities.
By applying reusable automation assets and operational blueprints, KDDI is seen as being able to build the internal capabilities required to continuously evolve AI-driven operations, accelerate innovation across a multi-vendor environment, and build a scalable foundation for higher levels of network autonomy.
“KDDI is committed to shaping and leading the future of intelligent, autonomous networks,” said Toshio Kato, general manager of the advanced platform development division at KDDI. “We want to scale AI operations safely bearing in the mind the unique requirements of Japan’s network environment, and this standardised model with Accenture and Blue Planet gives us the confidence to continue our AI momentum at scale.”
Tejas Rao, global network practice lead of communications industry at Accenture, added: “The shift toward autonomous networks is moving from aspiration to reality as operators seek to unlock the full value of AI while managing growing network complexity. Achieving higher levels of network autonomy requires more than deploying new technologies.
“By putting the right people, processes and governance in place to scale AI with confidence, KDDI is creating a platform for continuous innovation, faster service innovation and long-term competitive advantage.”
The multi-year programme will begin with KDDI’s fixed network operations and will expand into the mobile network in 2028.
