Validation of the hybrid cloud began in 2022, demonstrating coordinated operation between the 5GC on AWS and DOCOMO’s platform for reliability.

Early tests show roughly a 70% reduction in power use when parts of the 5GC run on AWS Graviton2, with plans to extend similar gains to Graviton3 in commercial deployments.

Commercial deployments are designed to migrate to Graviton3 to achieve comparable environmental benefits in production.

The release frames the effort as a joint DOCOMO-NEC initiative, with NEC as the technology provider and DOCOMO as the operator, using AWS as the cloud platform.

Japan’s leading edge 5G core network is now live on AWS, created by NTT DOCOMO and NEC as a commercial, AI-driven infrastructure showcased at Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona.

The project aims to expand AI knowledge bases, optimize task allocation, push faster network speeds, and drive end-to-end automation of 5GC operations for reliable, scalable services.

The Barcelona showcase demonstrates an AI-powered, scalable telecom infrastructure intended for future services and rapid deployment.

NEC redesigned the architecture to support infrastructure as code and CI/CD on AWS, integrating CloudFormation, CodeBuild, and CodePipeline to enable fault tolerance and redundancy in a commercial setting.

The 5GC uses a hybrid cloud model pairing DOCOMO’s virtualization platform with AWS, enabling flexible capacity, improved reliability, and sustainability.

Infrastructure is managed with IaC and CI/CD, leveraging AWS tools to coordinate resources and ensure carrier-grade availability.

The collaboration spans DOCOMO, DOCOMO BUSINESS, DOCOMO SOLUTIONS, NEC, and AWS to improve deployment flexibility, carrier-grade availability, and efficiency for the 5G era.

Executives from DOCOMO, NEC, and AWS Japan emphasized leadership in AI-driven network construction and the collaboration’s potential to boost speed, reliability, and standardization.