# Section 1 Comprehensive Strategy Promotions

### 1. Promotion of National Strategy

The Basic Act on the Advancement of Utilizing Public and Private Sector Data was promulgated and put into effect in December 2016 for the purpose of allowing the national government to comprehensively and efficiently develop an environment for the better utilization of public and private sector data. The Cabinet decided at its meeting in May 2017 the “Declaration to be the World’s Most Advanced IT Nation Basic Plan for the Advancement of Utilizing Public and Private Sector Data” from the perspective of taking world leadership in creating a model of a Society Fully Utilizing Public and Private Sector Data where people can enjoy true affluence.

In June 2017, the Cabinet decided the “Growth Strategy 2017,” which indicates the future direction of ICT policy by clarifying concrete measures to be focused on for achieving further growth of Japan, such as the development of a foundation and system for data utilization, promotion of use of individual number cards, and realization and utilization of the 5th generation (5G) mobile communication system.

### 2. Promotion of MIC's ICT Comprehensive Strategy

## (1) Promotion of Introduction of ICT in the Entire Society in View of 2020

Envisaging sustainable growth after the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, MIC has been deliberating the establishment and implementation of an Action Plan at its Conference on the Promotion of Introduction of ICT in the Entire Society in View of 2020. The Action Plan specifies goals, detailed content and schedules for each sector, including the development of a free Wi-Fi environment, sophistication of multilingual voice-based translation systems, overseas distribution of broadcast content to communicate the appeals of Japan, promotion of the use of 4K/8K and digital signage, realization of the 5G mobile communication system, utilization of open data, and cybersecurity measures.

## (2) New Information and Communications Policy in View of the IoT and Big Data Era

In September 2015, MIC consulted with the Information and Communications Council regarding the new information and communications policy in view of the IoT and big data era, and the third interim report was compiled in January 2017. This report clarifies goals, responsible entities, and schedules for concrete measures to achieve the data-driven economy, and the IoT Comprehensive Strategy specifying these matters for each layer was compiled.

In October 2015, the IoT Acceleration Consortium was established with the aim of building a system for promoting the development and demonstration of technologies and the creation of new business models to facilitate IoT use in government-industry-academia collaboration amid global changes in industrial structures being brought about by the advancement of IoT, big data and AI, etc.

## (3) Promotion of IoT Use and Data Utilization

### A. Promotion of IoT Use

(A) Project to Support Creation of IoT Services (Familiar IoT-related Project)

In accordance with the aforementioned interim reports (the first to third versions), the “New Information and Communications Policy in View of the IoT and Big Data Era,” compiled by the Information and Communications Council, MIC has been striving to promote data utilization through developing rules based on regional experiments on IoT services. Specifically, the respective responsible entities consisting of local governments, universities, and user companies carry out empirical projects on leading IoT services in sectors closely related to everyday life, such as family life and food, to identify problems to overcome, create reference models for solving such problems, and clarify rules necessary for promoting data utilization.

(B) Support for IoT Testbed Projects

The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) offers financial assistance for part of the funds necessary for the development of IoT testbeds and regional data centers. This is for the purpose of developing testbeds used for the demonstration of new telecommunication technologies to realize IoT and promoting decentralization of data centers that play a significant role in distributing large amounts of data.

(C) Taskforce to Promote Regional IoT Implementation

Ahead of full-scale commercialization of IoT or other technologies, MIC started to hold the Taskforce to Promote Regional IoT Implementation in September 2016 to disseminate the outcomes of past experiments through-