On April 24, 2026, Anthropic and NEC Corporation announced a strategic partnership under which Anthropic’s Claude product family will be made available to roughly 30,000 NEC Group employees worldwide. Under the agreement, NEC becomes Anthropic’s first Japan-based global partner.
Joint focus areas
The companies will jointly develop secure, domain-specific AI solutions tailored to the Japanese market, initially targeting finance, manufacturing and local government. Cybersecurity is also a key focus: Claude will be integrated into NEC’s Security Operations Center services and into NEC’s next-generation cybersecurity offering.
Product integration and NEC BluStellar Scenario
Anthropic products, including Claude Opus 4.7 and Claude Code, will be incorporated into NEC’s BluStellar Scenario program. BluStellar Scenario provides consulting, AI tools, security and digital infrastructure to businesses; the initial deployments will concentrate on data-driven management and customer experience, with plans to expand into additional areas over time.
Internal use, training and a Center of Excellence
NEC will establish a Center of Excellence to build a highly skilled, AI-enabled engineering organization. Anthropic will provide technical enablement and training to support that effort. NEC aims to create one of Japan’s largest AI-native engineering teams, which will make use of Claude Code and other Claude tools in their workflows.
Client Zero and Claude Cowork
As part of its ongoing Client Zero initiative—where NEC acts as its own first customer before offering technologies to clients—the company will broaden internal use of Claude Cowork across its business operations.
Availability
Claude is being deployed to NEC Group employees globally, and joint development of industry-specific AI solutions is already underway. Claude, Claude Code and Claude Cowork are Anthropic products; NEC BluStellar is an offering from NEC Corporation.
Significance
The partnership combines product integration with capability-building: with Anthropic’s support NEC plans to rapidly scale AI engineering capacity in Japan while co-developing secure, industry-focused solutions that align with local expectations for safety, reliability and quality.
