Japanese tech giant doing God’s work in the Vatican

Earlier this year, Tokyo-based IT services provider NTT Data was selected to aid in the construction, storage, and safekeeping of a digital archive for the Vatican Apostolic Library. NTT Data, a subsidiary of Japanese telecommunications giant NTT, on Monday announced that it had successfully launched a new application for viewing more than 400 digitized manuscripts on the library’s free website.

The initial release represents only the tip of the iceberg, considering that the Vatican Apostolic Library contains more than 80,000 ancient manuscripts amounting to over 40 million individual pages. NTT Data’s current contract, valued at EUR 18 million (US$22.8 million), is for 3,000 manuscripts to be digitized by 2018. The firm deployed its patented AMLAD digital archiving technology to present the documents in high definition. The viewer is optimized for multiple devices, including tablets.

“We gladly accepted the collaboration of NTT Data to support the further improvement of the project of digitally archiving of our manuscripts using their innovative technologies,” Monsignor Cesare Pasini, Prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library, said in a statement. “In so doing, we will further nurture our mission of making these [documents] widely known, in a profound spirit of universality – in terms of both knowledge and collaboration with institutions and companies throughout the world.”

How did a Japanese IT firm become entrusted with some of the Catholic world’s most sacred documents in the first place?

“We believe they chose us for our passion for this project,” Katsuya Tanaka, a member of NTT Data’s public relations department, tells Tech in Asia. “We have made a long-term commitment to help preserve these unique and valuable treasures of humankind and to ensure their accessibility to people everywhere. [The Vatican Apostolic Library] also favorably evaluated the track record of our AMLAD service, as exemplified by our work with Japan’s National Diet Library.”

Tanaka says that the Vatican first approached his company in 2012. At present, there are approximately 50 NTT Data technicians and other personnel on the ground in the Holy See.

“As the digitization work progresses, additional manuscripts will be uploaded on a regular basis,” Tanaka adds. “The ultimate objective is the digitalization and long-term storage of some 82,000 manuscripts. NTT Data plans to establish a solid and sustainable business relationship with the Vatican Apostolic Library over the initial four-year period, forming a foundation for possible additional collaboration.”

Working with such a high-profile global entity as the Vatican is in line with NTT Data’s larger goal of growing business channels outside of Japan. The firm, which already has business operations in more than 40 countries, set a mid-term target of increasing international revenue to 25 percent of total revenue by the fiscal year ending March 2016.

“At present, we’re actually on course to attain this goal a year early,” Tanaka says. “Namely, we expect international revenue to reach JPY 400 billion (US$3.74 billion) – more than 25 percent of total revenue – by the end of the current fiscal year. We now envision reaching a one-to-one ratio for international and domestic business in the future.”

The Vatican Apostolic Library, also known as the “Popes’ Library,” was founded by Pope Nicholas V Parentucelli in 1451. In the sixteenth century, it was moved to the Sistine Hall by Pope Sixtus V Peretti, where it remains today.