NTT DOCOMO announces ¥857 bn FY2026 capex for 5G, AI‑native networks

NTT DOCOMO said it will allocate ¥857 billion in capital expenditure for fiscal year 2026, essentially unchanged from the previous year. The spending will mainly support expansion and modernization of its 5G network, AI‑driven network automation, cloud‑native radio access network (RAN) compute platforms from Ericsson, and the rollout of AI‑native infrastructure such as the IOWN All‑Photonics network and a 5G core on AWS with NEC.

In parallel, DOCOMO’s Technical Journal released a second set of NFV‑focused articles produced by DOCOMO Euro‑Labs. The papers discuss how network‑function virtualization (NFV) is being enhanced with machine‑learning, intent‑driven operations and new virtualization models, and examine NFV’s role in emerging 6G use cases, including non‑terrestrial network devices and in‑network AI computing.