Broadcom and NEC Deepen Partnership for Private Cloud

Broadcom Inc. announced a significant extension of its strategic agreement with Japanese technology leader NEC Corporation in deploying a state-of-the-art private cloud using VMware Cloud Foundation. Under this agreement, NEC will bring its own experience and deep technical expertise to help customers in Japan modernize their infrastructure in a secure and cost-efficient manner.

What is Being Announced

Under the agreement:

As we said at the beginning, NEC will adopt VMware Cloud Foundation inside its own IT operations as part of its “Client Zero” strategy — i.e., they use it first themselves, learn deeply, and then offer it to others.

VCF-based managed services will be provided by NEC starting October 2025 under a new service called “NEC Private Cloud Infrastructure powered by VMware.”

Under the BluStellar Scenario value-creation model of NEC, the company plans to deliver VCF-based solutions to customers using Broadcom’s technology to modernize enterprise IT.

Broadcom refers to VCF, or VMware Cloud Foundation, as a “first integrated cloud platform” that bridges the agility of public clouds with the security, performance, and lower TCO of private clouds. It runs a variety of workloads, from traditional to modern to AI-powered applications on a single platform.

Such deeper engagement by NEC in VCF, not just using it internally but also offering it externally, will presumably sharpen the ability of NEC to implement private-cloud modernization and provide high-quality managed services.

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日本のハイテク産業にとって重要な理由

More than a corporate deal, this announcement carries strategic implications for Japan’s technology landscape.

Accelerated Adoption of Private Cloud in Japan

For many Japanese enterprises, moving to a modern private cloud is central to digital transformation. NEC’s decision to both adopt and resell VCF gives local companies a proven path to modernize data centers with a trusted partner. It also lowers the risk for customers who may have been hesitant to move away from legacy infrastructure.

Security, Sovereignty, and Cost Efficiency

Data sovereignty and security are of utmost importance in Japan for corporations, especially regulated industries or companies dealing with sensitive data. With VCF, they are able to maintain their own private cloud while achieving flexibility close to that of public clouds; this can help them reduce risk and maintain control while keeping costs predictable.

Support for AI and Modern Workloads

VCF is not just about traditional workloads; it’s built to support modern and AI-driven applications. To that end, Broadcom just announced that VCF 9.0 will feature Private AI Services, with native support for GPU, model stores, and vector databases.

For Japanese enterprises desiring to run AI workloads locally rather than in public hyperscaler clouds, this integrated platform could pay dividends.

Ecosystem and Innovation

This strengthened collaboration between Broadcom and NEC is in line with the greater drive to make private cloud environments more open and flexible. Broadcom is investing in an open VCF ecosystem by enabling hardware certification for AI (VCF AI ReadyNodes) and supporting a broad set of infrastructure partners.

This means that Japanese businesses have more options for infrastructure, lower vendor lock-in, and possibly faster innovation.

Digital Transformation for Japanese Enterprises

With NEC’s BluStellar Scenario-a value-creation model-the company is in a prime position to enable Japanese enterprises to transform, not just modernize. By integrating VCF with NEC’s domain expertise and managed services, organizations across industries like manufacturing, finance, and government can realize their DX journeys at a faster pace.

Broader Business Implications

Beyond Japan, the Broadcom-NEC partnership has a number of implications globally:

Scalability and Efficiency: VCF provides a single platform to manage a variety of workloads-traditional, modern, and AI-all while helping organizations reduce complexity and improve resource utilization.

Open Cloud Ecosystem: Broadcom is committed to driving VCF towards a more open and flexible private cloud infrastructure through open networking, ODM self-certification, and open-source contributions.

AI-Ready Infrastructure: Support for NVIDIA AI hardware, such as Blackwell GPUs, makes VCF well-suited to enterprises seeking to deploy AI models into a secure, private cloud environment.

Digital Sovereignty: Using a private cloud built on VCF gives firms and governments a way to leverage cloud-native capabilities without losing control of their data or assuming the risks of full public cloud dependency.

課題とリスク

Yet, the way ahead is subject to certain challenges:

Migration complexity: Legacy system migrations into VCF-managed private clouds can be cumbersome and very costly, especially for organizations with infrastructure that is deeply entrenched.

Skills Gap: Running a modern private cloud-probably more so for one supporting AI-requires specialized skills in virtualization, cloud management, and GPU infrastructure. NEC and its customers will have to build this talent or buy it.

Cost-benefit realization: Private cloud gives long-term cost savings. Upfront investment in hardware, licensing, and training may be high; hence, careful ROI considerations by customers are needed.

Security and Compliance: Although private clouds offer more control, organizations will still have to implement strong governance, risk, and compliance frameworks to handle data in a secure manner.

結論

This strengthens the partnership between Broadcom and NEC to further the adoption of VMware Cloud Foundation and represents a significant step in the modernization of Japan’s enterprise cloud infrastructure. With NEC offering VCF-based managed services from October 2025, including using the platform itself, the collaboration brings strong technical credibility, operational experience, and local insight. This could potentially accelerate the adoption of private cloud for Japan’s technology sector, support AI-driven workloads, and enhance digital transformation across the industry. Open by design and natively attuned to AI workloads, VCF is well-placed as a compelling infrastructure platform for the modern enterprise, underpinning security and flexibility with performance.

The move by ブロードコム そして NEC is part of a global trend where private cloud and AI converge to drive secure and efficient high-performance AI workloads for business. While there are still challenges ahead, this could well be the blueprint for how leading Japanese firms modernize their cloud infrastructure for the future.