Kinetica Launches Operations in Japan, Partners with Networld to Develop an AI Center in Japan

SOURCE: Kinetica

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – October 23, 2017 – Kinetica, provider of the fastest GPU-accelerated database, today announced its partnership with Networld Corporation, the value-add distributor of Kinetica based in Tokyo, to develop a world-class Artificial Intelligence (AI) Center in Japan. The aim of Networld AI Center is to enable customers to view use cases through demonstrations, proof of concept (POC) and training across sectors including telecommunications, e-commerce, manufacturing, Internet-of-Things (IoT) and financial services.

Based in Tokyo, the Networld AI Center will accelerate AI and analytics development among organizations and help build Japan’s reputation as a world leader in the AI field. The Center will be supported by Kinetica’s database solution, which is powered by NVIDIA’s graphic-processing units (GPUs).

“We are excited to launch the Networld AI Center in Tokyo. We are looking forward to helping companies adopt machine learning and AI technologies,” said Shoichi Morita, President and CEO at Networld Corporation. “The convergence of such technologies is set to transform how customers and organizations work. The Center aims to assist companies across various sizes and industries and spur great improvements in their productivity, innovation and operational processes.”

Kinetica’s built-in AI functionality, enterprise-class functionality and ability to run on various platforms including Cisco, Dell, Hewlett Packard (HP), IBM Minsky and NVIDIA® DGX-1™ have made it the preferred partner of choice for Networld. As compared to traditional processing systems which are based on CPUs, Kinetica’s database runs on NVIDIA GPUs and supports data processing 100 times faster and at a tenth of the hardware cost of traditional databases.

“We are excited about Kinetica investing in the Japan market and partnering with NVIDIA. The unrivalled processing power of NVIDIA’s DGX-1 will reinforce the capabilities of Kinetica’s database and allow companies to modernize their business intelligence. As operational bottlenecks are reduced, companies can make faster and highly accurate data-driven decisions, in turn improving their competitiveness. This is crucial for many businesses today in the age of data deluge,” said Masa Osaki, Japan Country Manager and VP of Corporate Sales at NVIDIA.

AI has emerged as the largest focus of the Japanese government and private enterprises to drive technology-based transition – it is expected to generate an economic return of JPY 121 trillion (USD 1.07 trillion) by 2045. To ensure Japan’s future competitiveness in the global market, the Japanese government has established a Strategic Council for AI Technologies in 2016 to drive a multipronged approach between various agencies in the advancement of AI technologies.

“Many businesses in Japan are ramping up their investment to develop AI technologies, a key pillar of the Japanese government’s growth strategy. Kinetica is in a position to enable and support those organizations evaluating and adopting enterprise GPU’s and AI technology to drive business outcomes,” said Joseph Lee, Vice President, Asia Pacific Japan at Kinetica. “We are thrilled to officially kick-start our operations in Japan with this partnership with Networld. With our broadly applicable GPU-accelerated database, customers can leverage high-performing advanced analytics to support the advancements of machine learning and AI within their organizations.”

The Networld AI Center will be accessible for all companies, including end users and resellers in Japan. In addition to gaining immediate access to database and analytics solutions and support from Kinetica, other deep learning solutions will be offered at the Center.

About Networld Corporation

Networld Corporation is a leading solution distributor of IT infrastructure in Japan. Its products include hardware and software products for building networks; server hardware, virtual servers, and security products for Internet/intranet environments; and system software and storage products supporting business environments, as well as OS and software development products. Networld Corporation is based in Tokyo, Japan. The company has sales offices in Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, and Tokyo, Japan. http://www.networld.co.jp/

About Kinetica

Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., Kinetica is the provider of the only GPU database to combine data warehouse, advanced analytics, visualizations, and is optimized for running machine learning and deep learning models. With Kinetica, users can simultaneously ingest, explore, analyze and visualize fast-moving, complex data within milliseconds to make critical decisions and find efficiencies, lower cost, generate new revenue and improve customer experience. Customers in verticals such as financial services, retail, healthcare, utilities and public sector use Kinetica for fast OLAP, convergence of AI and BI, and geospatial analytics. Amazon, Cisco, Dell, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Tableau are part of the Kinetica ecosystem of cloud, hardware, server and software partners. Investors include Canvas Ventures, Citi Ventures, GreatPoint Ventures, and Meritech Capital Partners. http://www.kinetica.com