Japan’s Sakana AI has entered into a comprehensive business partnership with Sumitomo Corporation and technology company SCSK, combining AI research, systems integration and Sumitomo’s extensive customer network in an effort to accelerate the use of homegrown artificial intelligence across Japanese industry.
The three companies announced the agreement on September 10, 2026, saying they will work together on AI implementation and on using the technology to address business and social challenges in Japan.
A central part of the plan is Sumitomo Corporation’s network of approximately 900 consolidated operating companies and around 100,000 customers and business partners. The companies intend to use this business base as a source of real-world applications for AI and as a route for expanding successful solutions.
The 100,000 figure represents Sumitomo’s customer base. The companies have not announced a plan requiring all 100,000 organizations to deploy Sakana AI technology.
The partnership brings together three different capabilities. Sakana AI will provide AI research, models, products and solutions, while SCSK will work on data preparation, integration with existing systems, security, governance, quality and implementation. Sumitomo will use its business relationships and industry presence to develop and expand applications.
The three companies said the collaboration will cover the process from identifying customer problems and evaluating technologies to production use, measuring results and continuing improvements.
The initial work will focus on four areas, beginning with financial services, manufacturing and other mission-critical industries where reliability, security and quality requirements are high.
In these fields, the companies plan to work on proof-of-concept applications and designs intended for production use, followed by implementation, quality management and ongoing operation. They also aim to turn knowledge gained from individual projects into services and business models that can be applied to other customers.
Cybersecurity is another major area of the agreement.
SCSK will consider new security services and business models using Sakana AI’s orchestration technology. The companies specifically cited applications that could support security work from vulnerability assessment through remediation.
The cybersecurity plan follows Sakana AI’s release of Fugu-Cyber in July 2026. Sakana says the model is designed for cyber defense and achieved reported success rates of 86.9% on CyberGym and 72.1% on CTI-REALM.
Fugu-Cyber is provided through an API and is subject to an access review because of the sensitivity of cybersecurity applications, according to Sakana AI.
The third area will involve jointly developing and improving enterprise AI products and services.
The companies said these products will be developed around customer needs rather than being restricted to a particular AI model. They also intend to allow customers to reassess and improve their choice of AI technology as models and technology continue to evolve.
The fourth area is social infrastructure.
Sumitomo plans to use its experience in urban development and other infrastructure-related businesses to support AI applications in areas connected to economic and social activity. The companies also said results and knowledge gained from implementations in Japan could eventually be taken overseas.
The agreement fits into Sumitomo Corporation’s wider Digital & AI Strategy. Sumitomo has identified its operating companies, customer relationships and SCSK’s technology capabilities as assets that can provide real-world environments for developing and testing digital and AI solutions.
In its own materials, Sumitomo says it has approximately 900 operating companies and around 100,000 customers and business partners. The company has described these business locations as potential environments where digital technologies and AI can be tested and applied.
Sumitomo has also said that solutions developed at individual business sites could be expanded to other parts of the group and to external customers after sufficient implementation experience is accumulated.
SCSK has become particularly important to that strategy. Sumitomo completed its move to make SCSK a wholly owned subsidiary in 2026 after announcing an acquisition valued at approximately ¥882 billion in 2025.
SCSK provides services spanning consulting, system development, testing, infrastructure construction, IT management, hardware and software sales, and business-process outsourcing. Its current AI-related work includes an AI-focused ERP platform, cloud infrastructure and an AI-agent platform.
For Sakana AI, the partnership comes as the Tokyo-based company expands from frontier AI research into larger-scale commercial and public-sector implementations in Japan.
Sakana AI was founded in July 2023. The company is led by co-founder and CEO David Ha, with Ren Ito as co-founder and chairman, according to the company’s corporate information.
Sakana AI has positioned its research around efficient AI development and has argued that Japan can pursue a different path from the enormous computing investments associated with the largest global AI models.
In November 2025, Sakana announced a ¥32 billion Series B financing round. The company said the funding gave it a post-money valuation of about ¥432 billion and brought its cumulative funding to approximately ¥66 billion.
The company said the financing would support frontier AI research, applied AI in Japan and the development of a broader ecosystem through investments, partnerships and acquisitions. Sakana also identified finance, defense and manufacturing as areas for expanded implementation.
Its recent product development has increasingly focused on Japanese business requirements.
In August 2026, Sakana launched Sakana Namazu, a language model API developed for Japanese language and Japanese business contexts. The company says Namazu is based on an open model and was further adapted using its own data and tuning for Japanese and business use.
Sakana also developed Sakana Fugu, an orchestration system that can dynamically call different models and combine their outputs. Sakana describes Fugu as a multi-agent orchestration system delivered through a single foundation-model interface.
The company has used this approach as part of its broader push toward what it calls Sovereign AI, with research aimed at tailoring AI systems to national requirements and developing technology that does not depend solely on building the largest possible model.
Sakana’s commercial activity in Japan has expanded beyond the Sumitomo relationship. The company has partnerships with major financial institutions, including MUFG Bank and Daiwa Securities, to develop AI applications for financial services.
In August 2026, Sakana said its collaboration with Daiwa Securities had entered a production-development phase for AI intended to support wealth-management operations, following an earlier technology assessment.
The company has also moved into government work. Sakana announced on August 24 that Japan’s Ministry of Defense had awarded it a contract for research and demonstration of AI functions needed for comprehensive intelligence analysis.
Under that project, Sakana said its AI-agent technology will be applied to work carried out by intelligence analysts in Japan’s defense establishment.
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