Anthropic has partnered with IT giant NEC to create Japan’s biggest AI engineering team. Thirty thousand employees will be asked to use Claude daily, despite the public’s mistrust of AI.
Anthropic has secured a foothold in the Japanese market through its partnership with NEC, one of the country’s top IT giants.
The US company aims to create one of Japan’s largest AI-native engineering organizations by arming 30,000 NEC employees with its AI tools.
The partnership marks Anthropic’s entry into the Japanese market, trailing behind companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Nvidia.
Both organizations will work together to develop security-focused, industry-specific AI products tailored for the Japanese market, initially targeting key sectors like finance, manufacturing, and local government, according to Anthropic.
Rather than building a blanket AI model to target all sectors, Anthropic will leverage its knowledge of AI, and NEC will use its knowledge of country-specific rules and regulations to create individual AI assistants tailored to each sector.
The partnership puts a large emphasis on security, as Anthropic’s Claude is scheduled to be integrated into NEC’s future cybersecurity services.
NEC is already using Claude for its Security Operations Center services to “defend customers against increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threats.”
Anthropic’s latest and “most capable” AI model, Claude Opus 4.7, and the company’s AI coding assistant, Claude Code, will be integrated into NEC’s BluStellar Scenario program.
BluStellar Scenario is a suite of tools designed to help businesses tackle complex enterprise issues, including data-driven management, consulting, and cybersecurity.
Claude Opus 4.7 and Claude Code will be used “to accelerate customer transformation” in BluStellar Scenario, first starting with Scenarios for Data-Driven Management and Scenarios for Customer Experience Transformation, according to NEC.
These “scenarios” help businesses evolve and grow using data, as well as improve the way customers interact with businesses.
Anthropic’s Claude products aim to help NEC customers collect and analyze data more efficiently, analyze customer behavior, and improve customer support, potentially through AI chatbots.
Claude will not only be used to automate and improve NEC’s software, but it will also be used by NEC employees.
The Japanese IT giant plans to establish a “Center of Excellence,” a specialized team that will help train NEC employees to best use AI in their work, with the goal of developing a “highly skilled, AI-enabled engineering organization.”
NEC wants to build Japan’s largest engineering team that employs AI, specifically Claude Code, not just once in a while but daily.
The company adopts a “Client Zero” approach to product release, meaning employees use the products first before selling them to potential customers.
As the Client Zero approach to business is arguably time-consuming, NEC employees will use Claude Cowork, an AI assistant that partially automates tasks across many roles, to boost efficiency and save time.
The public’s attitude towards AI
The Japanese government and other major sectors have welcomed the arrival of AI.
SoftBank, a major Japanese technology investment-focused company, has recently sought out a $10 billion loan secured by its shares in OpenAI to secure its position as a major global authority in AI, according to Bloomberg.
OpenAI and SoftBank announced their partnership in 2025 to see how generative AI could positively impact government services in Japan.
They built Gennai, an AI tool built specifically for government employees, which is powered by OpenAI’s technology.
While Japanese companies and the public sector want to push the technology, the general public has reportedly taken a cautious approach to AI adoption.
The Japanese public’s view of AI adoption was “strikingly pessimistic” in comparison to other countries, as per various surveys, according to the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
The results concluded that the Japanese people weren’t confident in AI’s ability to make major improvements in their personal lives and in Japanese society as a whole.
Furthermore, AI skepticism is reportedly higher in Japan than in other countries in Asia, according to a report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Main concerns include mass automation and job losses, alongside loss of trust in authorities who essentially sell out and rely heavily on mass-produced AI owned by large multinational tech companies.
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