Japanese City of Sendai Taps Nokia to provide 5G, multi-access Edge Computing, drone systems

Nokia and the City of Sendai have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to deliver technology solutions for local businesses as they recover from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, while contributing to improvements in the quality of life for citizens.

The agreement covers public safety management, including disaster recovery, activities to improve the safety and security of local citizens, and the testing and development of Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) and 5G applications within the city.

The memorandum will establish Nokia as a long-term strategic partner to the city, which continues to recover from the major natural disasters of 2011. The two parties plan to stage a joint disaster exercise in 2018, and will collaborate further on public safety innovation and development. Nokia will also offer its Nokia Innovation Platform and other innovation programs to universities and startups in Sendai to help the city to establish a local ecosystem and support business opportunities outside of Japan. Finally, Nokia and Sendai will co-establish a test bed for MEC and 5G applications to accelerate related use cases.

The first joint activity will be to show public safety solutions such as the Nokia Ultra Compact Network, Nokia Group Communications push-to-talk and push-to-video application with ruggedized devices, as well as a drone at the International Disaster and Risk Conference (IDRC) 2017 to be hosted in Sendai on 25-27 November.

The partnership between Nokia and the City of Sendai builds on the strong ties the city has with Finland through working on many healthcare projects since 2003; Sendai also has cooperated with the Finnish city of Oulu since 2005 on projects including gaming.

Kazuko Koori, Mayor, City of Sendai, said: "Nokia will help us create a safer and more secure city environment for the citizens of Sendai, easy and quick access to the foreign IT market, as well as provide an MEC/5G test platform for mid-small size businesses and start-ups. Sendai already has existing MoUs with DOCOMO and Oulu in Finland, and the idea is to gain further synergies with the new agreement with Nokia."

Jae Won, head of Nokia Japan, said: "We are honored to be selected as a strategic partner to help the city of Sendai continue their recovery and deploy our wide portfolio of technologies for crucial disaster management and recovery initiatives. Nokia is helping many cities in the world with their smart city transformation, such as Bristol in the U.K., Tampere in Finland, and Dubai in the UAE - and now the businesses and communities in Sendai will benefit from our technology expertise."