JAPAN IT WEEK Spring is Japan’s largest and most influential trade show devoted to every layer of enterprise and consumer information-technology. Held annually at Tokyo Big Sight, the 2024 edition will run for three days and occupy the entire East and West Halls, with more than 1,700 exhibitors and 100,000 visitors expected. The show is strictly in-person; no virtual platform is offered. It is organised by RX Japan and admission is free to trade visitors who pre-register online. The audience is chiefly IT managers, systems integrators, software developers, security officers, data-centre architects, government procurement staff, investors and R&D teams from manufacturing, finance, retail, healthcare and education sectors across Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

The exhibition is split into eleven co-located specialised shows that run simultaneously: Cloud & BPR Expo, Security & Network Expo, Data-Centre Expo, AI & Business Automation Expo, IoT Solutions Expo, Software & App Development Expo, Embedded Systems Expo, Retail IT Expo, Digital Marketing Expo, and the newly launched DX Human Resource Development Expo. Each zone features live product demonstrations, comparative benchmark theatres, start-up pitches and half-day technical seminars. Key themes for 2024 include generative-AI adoption, zero-trust architecture, carbon-neutral data-centres, quantum-safe cryptography, robotic process automation and regulatory compliance with Japan’s new Digital Agency standards.

The 2024 keynote theatre will host more than 120 sessions. Confirmed speakers include Digital Minister Taro Kono on “Government Cloud Consolidation 2.0”, NTT Data CTO Yo Honma on “Quantum-Secure Networks”, Sony CISO Shigeki Oda on “Supply-Chain Resilience”, and SoftBank VP Kazuhiko Miyazawa on “Edge AI for 5G Open-RAN”. Major vendors anchoring the floor are Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Japan, IBM Japan, Dell Technologies, HPE, Fujitsu, NEC, Hitachi, Trend Micro, McAfee, Fortinet, Palantir Japan, Red Hat, VMware, Samsung SDS and Huawei Japan. First-time exhibitors include ten Korean AI chip start-ups and seventeen European green-data-centre cooling specialists.

Parallel programmes include the “IT Management Summit” for CIOs, the “Developer Day” hackathon judged by GitHub Japan, and the “IT Talent Career Fair” aimed at mid-career engineers. Evening networking receptions are scheduled in Ariake and Ginza. The show catalogue is distributed only on-site in Japanese and English; no digital pr