Fujitsu's restructuring plans have AI at the top of its priority list

With an initial investment of $4.6m Fujitsu opened a centre for AI development in Vancouver

Tens of thousands of executives and tech experts attended Fujitsu Forum Munich 2018. Fujitsu

Fujitsu is undergoing a massive restructuring with artificial intelligence a top priority, bringing it up against the likes of Amazon, Apple and Google in the race for advancements and market share as the Japanese technology company opens a new subsidiary to develop AI.

Fujitsu Intelligence Technology opened this month in Vancouver with an initial capital investment of $4.6 million (Dh16.8).

While the Tokyo-headquartered company is centralising all of its manufacturing in Japan, it is using hubs like Vancouver, Munich and London, where it has customers, to understand international standards and demands and develop its newest technology, according to a Fujitsu spokesperson.

As part of its transformation, Fujitsu has opened digital centres for its customers in London and Munich this year where it has helped co-create 40 new solutions in security, AI and data analytics, among other concepts, that are now under further development. Fujitsu has also built a new technology solution for Microsoft Azure Stack to provide businesses with public cloud storage space that can provide the same control over data to its customers as a private cloud offering can.

"The core value of digital transformation is to move things quickly; more specifically, getting technology closer to the end-consumer or the end-citizen in the shortest possible time-frame," Joachim Box, head of Fujitsu's co-creation and digital transformation centres, told The National from the company's Technology Forum in Munich.

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Some of the technologies that took centre-stage during the two-day forum, which ended on Thursday, included security, internet of things, artificial intelligence, data analytics, blockchain and robotics.

“We have a made a roadmap to help our customers unleash their creativity and empower their businesses to become agile. The right timing is very crucial in this entire cycle of transformation,” said Duncan Tait, head of Europe, Middle East, India and Africa at Fujitsu.

“Digital technology is enabling new approaches to creativity and agile working and is an important step in empowering people to deliver amazing products, services and solutions that customers are looking for,” he added.

Fujitsu is targeting revenues of ¥3.5 trillion (Dh113.71 billion) by fiscal year 2022. As part of its ongoing restructuring, Fujitsu has announced drastic reforms to improve profit margins – one being the closure of its Augsburg site in Germany. The announcement of the closure of its Augsburg facility came nearly a year after Fujitsu sold off a 51 per cent stake of its PC business to China-based Lenovo for nearly $269m.