Fujitsu and Nutanix Launch Takane, a Japanese Large Language Model, Targeting the Enterprise Private AI Market

Fujitsu and Nutanix have formed a strategic partnership to integrate Takane, Fujitsu's large language model (LLM) optimized for Japanese, into the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud platform (NAI). This collaboration marks the first Japanese-enhanced LLM certified for the Nutanix AI platform, offering enterprises a new option for private AI deployments.

Technical Advantage: Optimized for Japanese

The Takane model is optimized for the unique challenges of the Japanese language, including its mixed character set (hiragana, katakana, and kanji), subject omission, and the nuanced honorifics common in Japanese business communication. Fujitsu claims Takane outperforms general-purpose LLMs on Japanese-language tasks.

Market Positioning: Meeting Enterprise Private AI Needs

This partnership primarily targets the Japanese enterprise market, particularly businesses requiring on-premises AI deployments due to data sensitivity, regulatory compliance, or latency requirements. Through the PrimeFlex integrated virtualization platform, Takane will provide reliable AI infrastructure for organizations with restricted public cloud usage.

Hybrid Deployment Solution

Fujitsu highlights that compatibility with NAI and the Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP) simplifies the migration and integrated management of AI applications and data across different environments, catering to hybrid deployments where development might occur in the public cloud while production runs on-premises or at the edge.

Service Plan

Fujitsu plans to offer Takane on NAI as a managed service starting July 2025, integrating it with its existing Fujitsu Cloud managed services to optimize and manage hybrid cloud operations, including environments running Takane on NCP.

Japan's AI Sovereignty Strategy

This partnership comes at a time when Japan is aggressively pushing for the development of its own LLMs. Driven by linguistic needs, data sovereignty concerns, and national economic strategy, Japanese tech giants and research institutions have been investing in foundational models primarily trained on Japanese data.

NTT's "tsuzumi" LLM, SoftBank's joint venture with OpenAI to develop AI agents tailored to the unique needs of Japanese businesses, and NEC's "cotomi" model launched last December are all key components of Japan's AI sovereignty strategy. The Japanese government has also voiced strong support for building a domestic AI ecosystem, viewing it as crucial for national competitiveness and ensuring AI models align with Japanese culture and business practices.

Conclusion

Fujitsu's deployment of Takane on an enterprise-grade hybrid cloud platform like Nutanix can be seen as a key step in realizing these domestic AI ambitions, providing Japanese businesses with the option to securely leverage generative AI within their own infrastructure. As the global AI race intensifies, localized and specialized AI solutions are becoming a new focal point of national technology strategies.