NEC today expanded its work with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to target gains in 5G, government services, and hybrid cloud.

The vendor began collaborating with AWS in late 2020. At the time it claimed to be the first Japanese company to embark on a global effort of its kind with the cloud giant. NEC engineers developed new skills and the vendor made gains in government and IT modernization during the last year, according to NEC EVP Toshifumi Yoshizaki.

NEC now intends to develop a global 5G offering with AWS spanning a cloud native and open 5G mobile core, operations and business support systems, and local 5G use cases. AWS will contribute its cloud and edge services to the effort.

“Together we’ve invested in people and go-to-market initiatives that are making it easier for enterprises and government customers to digitally transform in the cloud,” said Matt Garman, SVP of sales and marketing at AWS, on a short video highlighting the expanded partnership.

Garman also noted that NEC’s previous internal migration from SAP to AWS paved the way for this project as it allows the company to assist other enterprises striving to reach similar outcomes with the aid of migration, integration, and consulting services.

NEC also plans to increase its hybrid cloud offering with AWS, connecting on-premises and cloud environments to help enterprises improve IT infrastructure. The company said it has at least 2,000 AWS-certified engineers on staff today and plans to increase that specialized workforce to 3,000 to spur hybrid cloud adoption among its customers. 

While NEC’s 5G effort with AWS is new, the company has been pushing heavily into the arena for years as it aims to grow beyond its traditional footprint in Japan. It joined forces with Samsung in 2018 to partner on the development of 5G mobile infrastructure and IT services.

Rakuten Mobile tapped NEC in 2019 to help it develop a fully virtualized, software-defined mobile network in Japan and later selected NEC to supply a 5G standalone core. NEC also more recently neared the final stages of certifying Red Hat OpenShift for its 5G core offering amid plans to integrate the Kubernetes-based platform into 5G radio access network (RAN) equipment and software, and mobile edge computing.

Cisco also expanded its long-standing integrator partnership with NEC earlier this year to include the deployment of 5G IP transport network equipment. 

Most of NEC’s activities remain in Japan, but these myriad partnerships could position the vendor and IT services provider for a bigger role as 5G and hybrid cloud deployments gain momentum.