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  3. Material issue 1: Basic approach
  4. Bringing innovation

Bringing innovation

Enhancing open innovation and collaboration among industry, academia, and government

The Internet, which forms the basis of all of IIJ's businesses, has been nurtured and developed by communities of people such as researchers, engineers, and users from around the world. To advance the Internet further, IIJ collaborates with communities in and outside of Japan, as well as universities and other research institutes, public organizations, and private businesses to create new innovations. We also actively disclose the technologies developed in-house and the expertise we have gained through by commercializing our technologies, to spread new technologies in society.

Participation in Internet-related communities

Internet society IETF

Internet Society(ISOC),Internet Engineering Task Force(IETF)

Internet Society is a leading international non-profit organization founded in 1992, working on standardization of Internet technologies and leading education and policy-related discussions. IIJ joined the Society as a founding member and currently supports its activities as a gold member company.

We are also involved in the activities of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), an organization that discusses standardization of Internet technologies together with Internet Society. IIJ engineers participate in multiple working groups, and have discussions based on IIJ's Internet expertise to contribute to technological development.

Initiatives on industry-academia partnerships

IIJ Research Laboratory

IIJ's R&D Center, IIJ Research Laboratory expert researchers measure and analyze the current state of the Internet traffic, and engage in next-generation technology research and development. The institute also conducts joint research with Internet researchers from around the world and accepts interns.

IIJ Research Laboratory

Joint research with universities

Our joint research with the University of Tokyo, whose aim is to switch communications seamlessly between private LTE and public LTE, utilizes IIJ's commercial full-MVNO (*) platform.
In addition, IIJ successfully realized the domestic production and cost reduction of a 5G core network, the core technology for 5G cell phone networks as a result of the joint development of open-source software development for local 5G/6G mobile systems in collaboration with NEDO (The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization), the University of Tokyo, APRESIA and Fujitsu.
We believe our continued research and development activities will facilitate the spread of local 5G telecommunications in various industrial fields.

In a joint research and development project regarding 5G data off-loading using the Passpoint, the next-generation public wireless LAN technology, conduced by Kyoto University, Tohoku University and other institutions, we offer mobile network as a full MVNO and provide SIMs, eSIMs and technological support.

  • (*)MVNO/full-MVNO:
    Mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) operate by using the base station and other wireless access facilities of mobile network operators (MNOs) such as mobile phone carriers, while full-MVNOs are operators who have and administer their own subscriber management functions (HLR/HSS) to enable more flexible service design such as issuing their own SIM cards.

Initiatives relating to AI

AI technologies including generative AI are increasingly used in many different areas and it is expected that they will continue to evolve as the technologies facilitating the development of society and industries. A service that uses AI technologies must have a platform for continuously and stably executing an enormous amount of computing tasks. Power consumption increases in proportion to the number of computing tasks, so increasing power consumption efficiency is one of the most important issues in the enhancement of the computing capabilities of an AI service platform. Solving this issue requires that the computing performance of AI accelerators (arithmetic processing) per unit of electricity be improved and the power supply density of data center infrastructure be increased. IIJ is working on the research and development of an ultra-high-efficiency AI computing platform in collaboration with Preferred Networks, Inc. and the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST).

Disclosing our technologies and expertise

Our contributions to open source software

Most of the software used on the Internet is maintained not by any particular company but by communities of volunteering developers. IIJ also uses many open-source software developed by such communities, and actively feeds software improvements back to the communities to contribute to improving open-source software features and their reliability.
Additionally, we proactively engage in the development of our own software and tools based on open source software to improve convenience and working environments, such as releasing access control functions to be used in combination with the web server software NGINX and software that permits the efficient sharing and management of documents.

Releasing technological information

IIR (Internet Infrastructure Review), IIJ Engineers Blog

IIR, IIJ Engineer Blog

IIJ also release technological information actively in "Internet Infrastructure Review," a technical report journal that periodically presents IIJ's technologies, as well as in a technology blog that introduces cutting-edge technologies in a timely manner.

IIJ Tech channel, IIJ Technical Seminar - ITS

IIJ Technical Seminar

IIJ Tech Channel on YouTube shares a broad range of technological information, mainly about developments and operations of the IIJ Group.
We also hold the IIJ Technical Seminar – ITS technological event to interact with external engineers.

Our responses to various Internet issues

Although the spread of the Internet has contributed to society's development, it has also created various problems. To realize a safe and secure Internet society, IIJ is taking initiatives with industry organizations and working on these issues.

Our initiatives on Internet security

To develop a safe Internet society and protect users, IIJ has joined organizations which aim to improve information security levels, investigating cyber-attacks, and evaluate and test measures against them, to improve incident (*) response capabilities.

  • (*)Incident: events such as virus infections and information leaks that could lead to serious accidents.

Securing email safety

M3AAWG,JPAAWG,ASPC

IIJ has joined organizations which aim to prevent abuse of networks by means such as spam prevention, to discuss and respond to such matters and speedily incorporate global initiatives and technologies into our services.

Raising awareness for safe and secure Internet

To prevent criminal cases arising from use of the Internet by young people and prevent further spread of damage, IIJ takes part in awareness activities to help organize safe Internet usage environments and improve media literacy.

JISPA

Improving the levels of privacy protection

Japan DPO Association

To secure Japanese companies' privacy protection in compliance with global privacy protection laws such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), IIJ participates the Japan DPO Association(*) as a board member.

  • (*)DPO (Data Protection Officer): Data protection representatives of companies who satisfy certain requirements required under GDPR.

Our initiatives for developing data centers and saving energy

JDCC,JEITA

IIJ has joined various organizations to improve the international competitiveness and energy consumption of Japanese data centers.

IIJ aims to create secure communication infrastructure that all people can rely on. To that end, we are involved in a range of activities related to the development and popularization of Internet technology, including efforts to create international standards for said technology, and security activities that contribute to building a safe Internet society. Here we introduce some of the groups that we are members of.

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