TOKYO, Mar 25, 2026 - (JCN Newswire via SeaPRwire.com) - Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. (SHI) and NEC Corporation (NEC) will begin joint development in April 2026 of a system that automatically identifies near-miss incidents at construction sites and generates reports as part of promoting safety. The system utilizes camera footage and sensor data collected from hydraulic excavators, aiming to prevent accidents.Overview of safety measure implementation using the jointly developed systemBackgroundConstruction industry operations are heavily influenced by unpredictable factors such as weather, geological conditions, and constantly changing work environments, resulting in frequent hazardous incidents. To enhance safety, there is growing demand for new support systems that leverage digital technologies. One such demand is for a system capable of automatically extracting, visualizing, and summarizing potentially hazardous scenes ("risk scenes") from site-specific and time-dependent video footage and work logs. However, within the construction industry, no technology is currently available for comprehensively supporting the entire process—from the accumulation of video data on construction machinery operations, to the extraction of risk scenes, the analysis and visualization of near-miss incidents, and, ultimately, the generation of reports in an end to-end manner.Against this backdrop, SHI—leveraging its expertise in construction machinery and data analytics—and NEC, with its long-cultivated capabilities in video recognition and cutting edge generative AI technologies, will jointly initiate the development of a first-of-its-kind system for the construction industry that automatically extracts near miss incidents and generates corresponding reports based on camera footage and sensor data captured from hydraulic excavators.OverviewThe new system will utilize an extraction AI model, trained on real world hydraulic excavator data accumulated on the SHI Group’s ICT/IoT common platform "SHICuTe" (1), to first identify and extract risk scenes from recorded video footage. These risk scenes, together with operational data from the hydraulic excavators, will then be analyzed using NEC’s proprietary technology that combines video recognition with generative AI (2), and stored as multimodal data incorporating temporal and spatial information. Based on this data, along with SHI’s expertise in construction-site machinery operations and human workflows, the system will cross reference hazardous and prohibited behavior data—which are defined by accidents, construction equipment failures, and operations requiring particular attention—as well as company specific data. Based on these matching results, the system will automatically identify the risk scenes that should be reported and automatically generate high quality near miss reports that provide a concise summary of the circumstances surrounding each incident.Prior to this initiative, a technical proof of concept was conducted in September 2025 to verify a system that automatically extracts near miss incidents and generates reports from video footage captured by cameras mounted on hydraulic excavators. The results confirmed that, based on the risk scenes extracted from the footage, the system was able to report near miss cases—including potential accident scenarios and their associated circumstances. Building on these outcomes, the joint development starting in April 2026 will aim to further expand the types of near miss incidents that can be identified and enhance the report generation capabilities in line with customers’ safety management needs, thereby contributing to the realization of safer construction sites.Process for generating near miss reportsOutlookIn fiscal year 2026, technical development and validation of the system will be advanced by utilizing on site data and safety management expertise from SHI, together with AI technologies and advanced technology consulting services provided by NEC, with the aim of achieving practical implementation in fiscal year 2027. Looking ahead, the companies plan to broaden the system’s applicability beyond scenes where physical contact between workers and machinery may lead to occupational accidents to include unsafe conditions that may not be readily recognized by workers, as well as considerations for site specific operational rules, thereby further expanding its scope of use.SHI and NEC will continue to combine their respective strengths to develop and validate new technologies, contributing to the realization of safer construction sites.(1) SHICuTe is a common platform that enables cross functional development of capabilities across the product lines of the SHI Group. It collects and stores various operational data from the group’s products connected online. "SHICuTe" is a registered trademark of Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd.(2) "NEC uses generative AI (LLM) and video recognition AI to automatically generate explanatory text from video - Applied to drive recorder videos, cutting accident report creation time in half -" (Announced by NEC on December 5, 2023) https://www.nec.com/en/press/202312/global_20231205_01.htmlAbout this technologyA new hope for zero construction-site accidents, born from a fusion of construction machinery data and LLMs ― A collaborative innovation by Sumitomo Heavy Industries and NEC URL: https://www.nec.com/en/global/rd/technologies/202512/index.htmlAbout NECThe NEC Group leverages technology to create social value and promote a more sustainable world where everyone has the chance to reach their full potential. NEC Corporation was established in 1899. Today, the NEC Group’s approximately 110,000 employees utilize world-leading AI, security, and communications technologies to solve the most pressing needs of customers and society.For more information, please visit https://www.nec.com, and follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube. Copyright 2026 JCN Newswire via SeaPRwire.com. All rights reserved. www.jcnnewswire.com

TOKYO, Mar 25, 2026 - (JCN Newswire via SeaPRwire.com) - NEC Corporation's (NEC; TSE: 6701) ecosystem-based corporate venture capital (CVC) fund, NEC Orchestrating Future Fund (NOFF), has invested in AGI7, Inc. (AGI7), provider of the Physical AI platform "Alpha Vision." This platform enables AI agents to understand physical spaces and to automatically execute effective responses to detected events.In recent years, a wide variety of sites, including stores, warehouses, construction sites, data centers, event venues, and public infrastructure, have seen growing needs for advancing safety measures, addressing labor shortages, integrating visualization across multiple locations, and making rapid decisions. However, there are limits to manually and continuously monitoring the vast amounts of video and sensor data collected from cameras and IoT devices. Consequently, there is a rapidly growing demand for AI that can understand physical spaces and perform advanced visualization and evaluation.AGI7's Alpha Vision leverages existing camera infrastructure, enabling AI to grasp the conditions of physical spaces in real time. The platform features multiple AI agents that automatically perform tasks such as patrols, risk detection, voice guidance, situation assessment, and report generation. A "Magic Search" function enables language searches across dispersed video data to instantly identify past events and activities. Combined with AI agent-generated reports, this reduces daily operational burdens and facilitates rapid decision-making. This approach is gaining traction in retail, logistics, construction, and other sectors, drawing attention as a next-generation Physical AI platform revolutionizing operation models for physical spaces.Through this investment, NEC will combine its video analytics technology and expertise in public safety with AGI7's advanced Physical AI platform to contribute to realizing a safe, secure, and resilient world.AGI7 Co-Founder & CEO Song Cao"We are honored to welcome the investment from the NEC Orchestrating Future Fund and deeply appreciate their confidence in our Physical AI technology. AGI7’s 'Alpha Vision' platform fundamentally solves labor shortages and operational inefficiencies by enabling AI agents to autonomously perceive, interpret and react to real-world events. Through this strategic partnership with NEC and their global expertise, we look forward to deploying our technology at scale and jointly accelerating the automation and intelligent transformation of physical operations across all environments."NEC Corporate SVP Shigeki Wada"Ensuring field safety and optimizing operational efficiency are increasingly vital for supporting social infrastructure. AGI7's AI platform for physical spaces enables AI agents to accurately perceive events in the physical world and translate them into effective assessments and actions. By combining this with NEC's long-accumulated expertise in public safety and industrial domains, we will contribute to advancing field operations and creating new social value."About NECThe NEC Group leverages technology to create social value and promote a more sustainable world where everyone has the chance to reach their full potential. NEC Corporation was established in 1899. Today, the NEC Group’s approximately 110,000 employees utilize world-leading AI, security, and communications technologies to solve the most pressing needs of customers and society.For more information, please visit https://www.nec.com, and follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube. Copyright 2026 JCN Newswire via SeaPRwire.com. All rights reserved. www.jcnnewswire.com

Kawasaki, Osaka, Japan, Mar 25, 2026 - (JCN Newswire via SeaPRwire.com) - Fujitsu Limited and the Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology at The University of Osaka today announced the development of a new technology designed to accelerate the industrial application of quantum computers in the era of early fault-tolerant quantum computing (early-FTQC). By combining ver. 3 of the STAR architecture, a unique highly efficient phase rotation gate quantum computing architecture, with a novel molecular model optimization technique, researchers have significantly reduced computational resource requirements. This breakthrough will enable the energy calculations for chemical material design such as catalyst molecules, within a realistic timeframe using early-FTQC quantum computers. These kinds of calculations are currently not possible using current computers, and would take millennia even using previous versions of the STAR architecture. The technologies are expected to contribute to solving various societal challenges, including accelerating drug discovery, improving the efficiency of ammonia synthesis processes, and advancing carbon recycling technologies.BackgroundQuantum computing holds significant promise across a wide range of industries, including drug discovery, cryptography, and finance. However, current quantum systems are highly error-prone, and practical applications are generally believed to require quantum computers with millions of qubits.To improve error correction and accelerate practical application of quantum computing, Fujitsu and The University of Osaka established the STAR architecture ver. 1 on March 23, 2023, followed by ver. 2 on August 28, 2024. The latter, with advanced phase rotation gates, significantly expanded computational scale, enabling potential early-FTQC calculations of solid-state material properties like high-temperature superconductivity.However, accurately calculating complex molecular chemical energies for practical applications still required excessive resources, and prior methods were limited by insufficient computational power or impractical timeframes.Newly developed technologyThis joint research [1] has demonstrated that combining the following two technologies enables energy calculations for chemical materials with sufficient accuracy and within a practical timeframe:1. Development of the STAR architecture ver. 3STAR architecture ver. 1 and 2 previously demonstrated more efficient quantum computing with unique phase rotation gates over conventional T-gate FTQC architecturesVer. 3 improves computational accuracy by more than 10x compared to ver. 2 by integrating phase rotation gates with logical-T gatesThis advancement enables more complex molecular calculations with the same qubit count and lowers the error rate requirements for qubitsFigure 1: Comparison of universal gate sets in quantum computing architectures 2. Technology for molecular model optimization This molecular model optimization technology is designed for use with quantum computers implementing STAR architecture ver. 3 and is applied during the process of generating quantum circuits from molecular modelsThis technology refines existing methods, which reduce computational resources by decomposing molecular models into many terms and selectively applying two techniques—time evolution and random sampling—with different characteristics based on the importance of each termThe technique reshapes the molecular model while preserving approximation accuracy, redistributes term importance, and optimizes the balance between the two techniques. This minimizes the number of gates in quantum circuits for molecular energy calculations, achieving a substantial reduction of computation time compared to conventional methodsFigure 2: Principle of molecular model optimization To validate the effectiveness of these technologies, the researchers evaluated the number of qubits and computational time required for industrially applicable energy calculations for three distinct molecules: Cytochrome P450, an important oxidizing enzyme in drug discovery; Iron-sulfur clusters, catalytic proteins involved in ammonia synthesis and energy metabolism; and Ruthenium catalysts, a focus in synthetic chemistry. Accurate energy calculations for these molecules are currently infeasible with classical computers due to memory limitations. Even with the STAR architecture ver. 2, such computations would take several millennia and high precision calculations would be difficult to achieve due to the scale of the calculation. The results of this validation primarily demonstrate that the STAR architecture ver. 3 reduces the number of qubits necessary to perform the calculations to between 1/15 and 1/80 of conventional FTQC architectures. Furthermore, the partners confirmed that calculations are feasible on early-FTQC quantum computers even with a lowered physical error rate requirement for qubits, from the previous 0.01% to 0.10%.Figure 3: Number of qubits required for energy calculation of three molecules Moreover, the molecular model optimization technology shortened computation time by three orders of magnitude compared to not using the technology. Fujitsu and The University of Osaka confirmed that computation times could be significantly reduced to approximately 35 days with a qubit error rate of 0.10% and approximately 10 days with 0.01%. Further reduction in computation time is possible with future expected reductions in the physical error rates of quantum computers and the use of parallel computing with multiple quantum computers, making the achieved computation times sufficiently practical. Figure 4: Computational time required for energy calculation of three molecules Future plansFujitsu and The University of Osaka will continue to advance the STAR architecture and molecular model optimization technology, expanding the practical application range of quantum computers in the early-FTQC era. The partners aim to contribute to solving societal challenges by applying these technologies across various industrial fields, including drug discovery, new material development, and finance.(1) This research was supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), the Program on Open Innovation Platforms for Industry-academia Co-creation (COI-NEXT), "Quantum Software Research Hub" (JPMJPF2014); JST Moonshot Goal 6 "Realization of a fault-tolerant universal quantum computer that will revolutionize economy, industry, and security by 2050," R&D project "Research and Development of Theory and Software for Fault-tolerant Quantum Computers" (JPMJMS2061); MEXT Quantum Leap Flagship Program (MEXT Q-LEAP), and "Development of quantum software by intelligent quantum system design and its applications" (JPMXS0120319794) Related LinksCenter for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology at The University of OsakaSTAR Architecture pageFujitsu QuantumFujitsu Small Research LabFujitsu and Osaka University* develop new quantum computing architecture, accelerating progress toward practical application of quantum computers Fujitsu and Osaka University* accelerate progress toward practical quantum computing by significantly increasing computing scale through error impact reduction in quantum computing architecture* As of April 2025, the official English name for Osaka University is "The University of Osaka."Press Conference MaterialsHeld on March 25, 2026Presentation Material: Fujitsu and The University of Osaka develop new technologies for chemical material energy calculations on early-FTQC quantum computersAbout FujitsuFujitsu’s purpose is to make the world more sustainable by building trust in society through innovation. As the digital transformation partner of choice for customers around the globe, our 113,000 employees work to resolve some of the greatest challenges facing humanity. Our range of services and solutions draw on five key technologies: AI, Computing, Networks, Data & Security, and Converging Technologies, which we bring together to deliver sustainability transformation. Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 3.6 trillion yen (US$23 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025 and remains the top digital services company in Japan by market share. Find out more: global.fujitsuAbout The University of OsakaThe University of Osaka was founded in 1931 as one of the seven imperial universities of Japan and is now one of Japan's leading comprehensive universities with a broad disciplinary spectrum. This strength is coupled with a singular drive for innovation that extends throughout the scientific process, from fundamental research to the creation of applied technology with positive economic impacts. Its commitment to innovation has been recognized in Japan and around the world. Now, The University of Osaka is leveraging its role as a Designated National University Corporation selected by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to contribute to innovation for human welfare, sustainable development of society, and social transformation. Website:https://resou.osaka-u.ac.jp/enPress ContactsFujitsu LimitedPublic and Investor Relations DivisionInquiriesThe University of OsakaCenter for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology, Planning Office — Press Release ContactE-mail: press_qiqb@ml.office.osaka-u.ac.jp Copyright 2026 JCN Newswire via SeaPRwire.com. All rights reserved. www.jcnnewswire.com