Disrupting data science with artificial intelligence NEC establishes a startup in Silicon Valley for automating data analytics

Accelerating the monetization of core technologies and strengthening business development capabilities

Tokyo, Japan & Cupertino, California, April 26, 2018 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) today announced the establishment of dotData, Inc., a new startup company based in Cupertino, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, that develops and globally provides software that automates data science processes using artificial intelligence (AI).

dotData will appoint Dr. Ryohei Fujimaki as CEO, who is a leader in the development of Predictive Analysis Automation, a core AI technology (*1), and one of the founders of dotData.

dotData will accelerate product development and go-to-market by hiring top talent, strengthening products and technologies, engaging with global partners, and acquiring external capital.

NEC will obtain an exclusive license from dotData to provide this software across Japan and will start to provide the software in the first half of FY2018.

"NEC is now accelerating the monetization of its competitive technologies by creating diverse alliances as part of the ‘strengthening of business development capabilities' in the 'restructuring of execution capabilities' that are outlined in the Mid-term Management Plan 2020 (*2) that NEC announced in January 2018," said Osamu Fujikawa, senior vice president, NEC Corporation. "The establishment of dotData is the first implementation of such reinforcements and a unique strategic carve-out scheme from NEC in which a leader in core technology becomes a founder of the new company and helps accelerate its monetization as a start-up company. Going forward, NEC will continue to promote innovative measures that strengthen our business development capabilities."

North America is a central market for data analytics, and as the market continues to grow, a lack of data scientists and heavy workloads are posing a greater challenge. This has been caused by a tendency to rely heavily on the experience and inspiration of data scientists during the data analysis process, and there is a particular need to deeply understand the different business characteristics of each industry.

"The software being provided by dotData automates and simplifies the process for end-to-end analysis, from data preparation to feature engineering, to machine learning, production and operations. This enables anyone to successfully carry out advanced data analysis, even without a great deal of industry and/or data science knowledge beforehand," said Dr. Fujimaki. "Moreover, AI automatically designs interpretable and transparent features that reveal unknown and valuable business insights that even human data scientists have never imagined. The software enables data scientists to leverage their ability to transform data insights to business actions and to achieve higher return-on-investment than ever before."

Notes:

• *1) Predictive analysis automation technology uses AI to completely automate the advanced analytic work that requires large amounts of time for skilled data scientists to carry out manually, such as the feature quantity design of big data and predictive model creation. This technology dramatically shortens the time that is required for data analysis and belongs to NEC's portfolio of advanced AI technologies, "NEC the WISE" ( *3).

• *2) NEC establishes "Mid-term Management Plan 2020" https://www.nec.com/en/press/201801/global_20180130_02.html

• *3) NEC the WISE NEC announces new AI technology brand, "NEC the WISE" http://www.nec.com/en/press/201607/global_20160719_01.html

NEC's Artificial Intelligence Research http://www.nec.com/en/global/rd/crl/ai/index.html