December 2020 Vol. 18 No. 12122020https://www.ntt-review.jp/archive/2020/202012.html

View from the Top
Hidemune Sugahara, Senior Executive Vice President, NTT Communications

Front-line Researchers
Hideki Yamamoto, Senior Distinguished Researcher, NTT Basic Research Laboratories

Feature Articles
Global Business Initiatives
NTT’s Global Business Initiatives
A New Training System Using VR Will Rev Up the Baseball Industry Like Never Before
Navigating Today’s Computing Model Landscape
NTT Pro Cycling: Data-driven Innovation in Action

Feature Articles
Media-processing Technologies for Artificial Intelligence toSupport and Substitute Human ActivitiesResearching AI Technologies to Support and Substitute Human Activities
Media-processing Technologies for Ultimate Private Sound Space
Saxe: Text-to-Speech Synthesis Engine Applicable to Diverse Use Cases
Speech Recognition Technologies for Creating Knowledge Resources from Communications
Knowledge and Language-processing Technology that Supports and Substitutes
Customer-contact Work
Spatial-information Processing Technology for Establishing a 4D Digital Platform

Feature Articles
NTT DOCOMO 5G Initiatives for Solving Social Problems
and Achieving Social Transformation
History of 5G Initiatives
NTT DOCOMO Contributions to 5G Standardization
5G Network

Regular Articles
Soft Error Countermeasure for 10G-EPON ONUGlobal Standardization Activities
Trends in Standardization of Mapping and Multiplexing Technologies for Optical Transport Networks

Practical Field Information about Telecommunication Technologies
Manual for Assisting with Troubleshooting in PHS Digital Cordless Telephone Systems

View from the Top

Hidemune Sugahara, Senior Executive Vice President,
NTT Communications
Overview
NTT Communications, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, hasreorganized with the aim of providing a safe and secure platform for data utilization tocustomers around the world. The company is striving to contribute to building adata-driven society on the basis of the concept called 3S (simple, smart, speedy) + S(secure) while developing technology and systems to implement the Innovative
Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN). We asked Hidemune Sugahara, senior
executive vice president of NTT Communications, about his enthusiasm andphilosophy as a member of senior management.

Front-line Researchers

Hideki Yamamoto, Senior Distinguished Researcher,
NTT Basic Research Laboratories▼Overview
Hideki Yamamoto, Senior Distinguished Researcher at NTT Basic ResearchLaboratories, and his co-researchers are creating novel materials nonexistent in thenatural world and elucidating the property of such materials. They apply NTT’s uniqueand state-of-the-art apparatus and technologies to stack the elements making up amaterial through control of their reaction at the atomic and molecular levels. We asked
Dr. Yamamoto about his current research activities and the mindset he adopts as aresearcher.

Feature Articles
Global Business Initiatives

NTT’s Global Business Initiatives
Abstract
The NTT Group positioned its global business as one of its pillars of growth in the NTT Medium-TermManagement Strategy announced in 2018. After active pursuit of international mergers and acquisitions,approximately one-fourth of the NTT Group’s workforce (135,000 people) now works outside Japan, and theglobal business has grown in importance.

Feature Articles
Media-processing Technologies for Artificial Intelligence to Support andSubstitute Human Activities

Researching AI Technologies to Support and Substitute
Human Activities
Abstract
The coming of digital transformation has been gaining interest, and its development seems to beaccelerating during the COVID-19 pandemic. Competition in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is also
intensifying, and platformers are accumulating massive amounts of data as learning data. Amid thesetrends, NTT Media Intelligence Laboratories is promoting the research and development (R&D) of AI
technologies to support and substitute human activities by taking advantage of the technologies andexpertise that it has cultivated. This article introduces this R&D initiative.