Technology & Monozukuri

technology

Unique Development Style Where All Hands Come Together in Upstream Process to Produce Superior Quality

Many technology companies have the basic monozukuri functions of development, design, and product, but DeNA believes that having quality, infrastructure, and security helps increase the chance of success for a business, and has set up dedicated departments for each established in a cross-department organization.


DeNA View on Monozukuri Structure

Quality
At DeNA, we believe that quality is something that every single person must be involved in building into our products and projects. We make sure to build in quality and make improvements for our upstream processes, including defining requirements and designing functions, and our downstream processes, including the detailed design and implementation. We also develop verification processes and technology to ensure we achieve the optimal quality required in DeNA’s various business areas, and we work to enhance our verification through a deep understanding of the business and technical domains as well as performing validity checks based on customer feedback.

Infrastructure
In 2020 DeNA shifted our approach to fully leverage the cloud, maintaining business speed while keeping costs low. The DeNA Group currently handles approx. 5 billion requests* every day, with data volume traffic in the petabytes. In the event that an active system has an issue, we have a mechanism to switch over to a standby system to keep downtime as close to zero as possible. Depending on the service we may build mechanisms in line with the infrastructure environment to provide a pleasant environment for our users.
*Request: Transmissions requesting information from a server

Security
We have formed DeNA CERT as our security team made up of members from various departments to adapt security initiatives to businesses from an organization and technology perspective. In regular circumstances this team coordinates with the business departments and works to ensure that the security policy has permeated the organization and that the most up-to-date security measures are in place, with the goal of providing safe and secure services. If the possibility of an incident occurs, then DeNA CERT takes a central role in the response. This team is made up of team members with specialized knowledge, enabling a rapid response.
Information Security

Strengthening Technology, and Adapting To & Driving New Technology

At DeNA our highly specialist engineers use their technical capabilities and creativity to create businesses and pursue stable, high quality operations.
Also, all employees at DeNA are proactively using AI and other new technologies in our businesses and taking on the challenge of creating new value. We aim to drive technological expansion in society by showing our technical insight gained as a front runner both within and outside the company.

Using Network Science to Improve Community Quality
Pococha pays particular attention to community quality, but the team felt there was an issue in the quantitative evaluation of these communities. We started an initiative to leverage network science to visualize the level of enthusiasm in a community. The team collaborated with talented data scientists to use network graphs to visually ascertain the growth process of a community and the current state. This made it possible to evaluate the effect of measures in a multi-faceted way. As a result, the business department team members can intuitively understand the situation, and we expect to see improved decision-making quality.

Entertainment Development Leveraging Blockchain Characteristics
We developed trivia.tech, a quiz game utilizing blockchain technology. When the game was released in January 2024 in Japan, it was so popular that all its availability was used up in just eight hours after launch. The game was then made available in the US market in June. In rapidly evolving blockchain technology, there is no need for a password, and there are no databases or servers, so users around the world can safely be authenticated, make payments, and engage in transactions all while enjoying good transaction speed and lower costs. We expect to see further spread of this technology, so we are continuing to develop the technology at the very cutting edge through our services.

Initiatives to Enhance Cybersecurity
A member of the DeNA Cybersecurity Dept. received the “Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications' Award for Cybersecurity Encouragement,” and she was specifically commended for encouraging the formation of the CSIRT community that engages in cybersecurity around Japan. The Cybersecurity Dept. conducts internal training and incident response exercises, among other tasks, but in addition to that, based on the insight and information gained as a result of these external activities, the team also updates DeNA’s internal security education to enhance our cybersecurity level.

Strengthening Technology, and Adapting To & Driving New Technology

Proactive Use of AI and Other New Technologies Inside & Outside DeNA

New Working Style Initiatives, Including Increasing Productivity Using Generative AI
We made the GPT-4 model connected to Azure OpenAI Service available as a Slackbot for everyone in the company to be able to easily use generative AI.This model learned from internal documents and knowledge, and increased employee productivity. Further, we are making progress with a product that will establish an environment where it will be easy to share generic tasks and products, making it so that every single employee can easily benefit from generative AI.

Top-Class Specialists, Including Kaggle Grandmasters, Collaborate with Businesses & Services
DeNA is proactively engaged in advancing and leveraging AI technology. We have deployed a Kaggle internal rank program where data science team members can use work time to participate in Kaggle,* in line with their results (Kaggle is provided by Google in the US). We apply the broad insights and rapid application abilities trained in competition to developing new services and products that leverage AI technology.
*Machine learning competition platform for participants from around the world to compete in the performance of their machine learning models using data provided by companies and research institutions, etc.

DeNA Data Scientist Results

2023 Oct. Gold Medal from LLM Science Exam Kaggle Competition
Dec. Won Child Mind Institute - Detect Sleep States Kaggle Competition
Dec. Gold Medal from Stanford Ribonanza RNA Folding Kaggle Competition
2024 Feb. Gold Medal from Santa 2023 - The Polytope Permutation Puzzle Kaggle Competition

Development of Real-Time Speech Conversion Technology Using Generative AI, and Application in Various Settings
DeNA developed real-time speech conversion AI technology that is simultaneously low latency on smartphones, high quality, and low cost, and is applying it to various settings. One example is how in the novel Vtuber experience app IRIAM, streamers are able to use this technology to convert speech during their stream, and we are making progress in field tests with the aim to apply the technology to our businesses.

Using Generative AI to Enhance Work Efficiency and Support Working Style for Doctors in the Medical & Healthcare Field
There are many benefits to using generative AI in medical and care settings, including greater work efficiency, improved diagnostic accuracy, and transformation in working styles for doctors. However, we need to take care about the potential problems, such as missing conditions for which there is insufficient training. Allm has begun a generative AI ecosystem project* for the medical & healthcare field. This project works together with partners and aims to maximize the positives of generative AI, while controlling the risks in preventing illness, in medicine, and in care.
*For more details, please see this press release:https://dena.com/jp/news/5116/ (Japanese only)

Proactive Use of AI and Other New Technologies Inside & Outside DeNA

Disseminating Technology & Contributing to Improving Broader Technology Use

DeNA does not aim to keep the technological insight we gain through our businesses to ourselves. Rather, we proactively disseminate that information to society at large to contribute to a higher level of use of technology.
Since 2016 we have hosted DeNA TechCon, a technology conference for students and working adults. In February 2024 the theme was “Polyphony,” and we focused on the people and technology that make up what is unique about DeNA. We covered a wide range of topics, from games and live streaming to AI, web3, healthcare, and medical, and we shared the technological challenges we are undertaking in each of our businesses. On the day of the event approximately 1,000 people joined either offline or online. On the DeNA Engineering blog our engineers publish articles about the issues they have faced and the technological challenges to overcome them. We also proactively participate and speak at technology conferences.
Another of our initiatives to contribute to better technology around the world is the DeNA Tech Studio program. We support both DeNA employees and external engineers by inviting them to casual study sessions on engineering.
DeNA, CyberAgent, Inc., MIXI, Inc., and GMO Internet Group, Inc., all tech companies in Shibuya, kicked off the BIT VALLEY project in July 2018, with the aim of accelerating technology innovation in Japan. Since then, under the vision “Overcoming company barriers and boosting the development of the Japan IT industry,” the four conferences held to date have included measures to train IT personnel and raise the level of IT monozukuri throughout Japan.

Disseminating Technology & Contributing to Improving Broader Technology Use

Establishing Structure to Leverage AI Technology & Contributing to Society

DeNA endeavors to apply AI to our corporate activities in line with our business strategy and the issues we are facing. We believe that using data safely and developing AI technology with an eye to applying it to our businesses will support our businesses and lead to further value for customers.
In 2023 DeNA formulated the "DeNA Group AI Policy" as a guideline to comply with laws and regulations and to promote the appropriate use of AI, and it was adopted through a board of directors resolution. The DeNA Group AI Guideline was also established. This Guideline was established to increase AI literacy and secure the right balance between the benefits and risks of AI in our business activities by serving as a reference and practical guide for employees, helping to promote the use of AI. DeNA has also established manuals regarding generative AI and AI literacy training, among other measures, to establish an environment for all employees to be able to utilize AI.
The AI situation both in Japan and overseas is fluid, and only becoming more so. Amidst this situation, DeNA employees participate in the AI use strategy task force of the Japan Business Federation, and we are contributing by gathering information and providing advice as an industry leader that will help inform policy and legal measures.
Also, one of DeNA’s core competencies is our unique, diverse businesses and the use of AI in them. We maximize synergy with our design and solution development capabilities, another core competence, and aim to become an AIUX* leading company, which is not yet established in Japan. To this end, we are proactively sharing technology and insight about AI both internally and externally in the form of academic conferences, tech events, and blogs, among others.
*This refers to maximizing the user experience and value in the development of AI solutions

AI Policy
Technology Report on AI/Data Use (Japanese only)