Today, Japan’s largest mobile telecommunications operator, NTT DOCOMO, announced a major web3 initiative in partnership with Accenture. It has also pledged to invest 500-600 billion yen ($3.4-4.1 billion) in the web3 sector and will add a subsidiary next year. It intends to use the Astar Network, a multi-chain smart contract platform that is one of the parachains of the Polkadot blockchain.

The financial investment will come in a period of five to six years.

It plans to engage a variety of industries through the use of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), an alternative to a corporate entity that aims to democratize the management of blockchain protocols. As DAOs are evolving, there is a risk of repeating the mistakes of enterprise blockchain consortia.

However, the NTT group has extensive experience in that department, which should help avoid consortium pitfalls.

DOCOMO positions itself as a web enabler and has identified four aspects it plans to be active in, starting with security, a blockchain wallet and crypto asset exchange and progressing towards token issuance and other web3 activities.

The partnership announcement with Accenture made no mention of Astar Network and focused on using blockchain and web3 to address societal issues: ESG, blockchain security, and web3 talent development.

Top of the list is promoting environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, including addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We note that blockchain has been used extensively for ESG, most notably to tokenize carbon credits, a somewhat controversial topic.

Public blockchain scams and smart contract bugs have meant that some view public blockchains as risky. DOCOMO aims to address this to enable users to safely adopt new technologies.

“Web3 is the most exciting technological development since the Internet,” said Motoyuki Ii, President and CEO of NTT DOCOMO. “DOCOMO, in collaboration with Accenture, will revolutionize social infrastructure by using blockchain and building a safe and secure Web3 environment. We will build an environment where the power of creators and developers can come together. We are pleased to promote Web3 developed in Japan and welcome individuals and companies to join us in the global development of Web3 services.”

To date, DOCOMO has not been a major blockchain player, primarily participating in telecom blockchain consortia such as the Carrier Blockchain Study Group.

However, NTT Data has been very active. That includes as a consultant on some major successful projects, such as Italy’s Spunta for interbank reconciliations. He is also the driving force behind TradeWaltz, a major Japanese supply chain platform with some similarities to TradeLens and GSBN.