Broadcom signs 10-year VMware Cloud Foundation deal with NTT DOCOMO

Broadcom will underpin NTT DOCOMO's private cloud with VMware Cloud Foundation for a decade, covering licences, technical support and AI-ready infrastructure.

By The Datatech Times Editorial Team AI level 2 of 5
AI level 2 of 5: drafted by our AI editorial assistant from the company's announcement; fact-checked, edited and signed off by Mark Walker, Editorial Director. What the levels mean
A bright data center aisle with rows of dark server racks on either side, featuring clear bundled cables connected by metallic fittings, leading to blurred doors at the far end under rectangular ceiling lights.

Broadcom has signed a 10-year agreement with NTT DOCOMO to expand and evolve the Japanese telco's private cloud infrastructure, with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) at its core. The deal, announced on 20 October 2026, is described by Broadcom as the first such comprehensive long-term agreement in Japan covering licences, technical assistance and maintenance support across the VMware product portfolio.

The two companies have worked together since 2019, when DOCOMO began deploying VCF as the backbone of its private cloud. The new agreement extends that relationship significantly, aligning product roadmaps and bringing Broadcom's engineering teams into closer operational collaboration with DOCOMO's own infrastructure specialists. DOCOMO serves tens of millions of subscribers across Japan and operates infrastructure that the company characterises as part of the country's social and digital fabric.

What the agreement covers

The deal spans three stated focus areas. The first is service continuity: VCF's unified management of compute, storage and networking will allow DOCOMO to upgrade systems without interruption, with autonomous resource scaling to handle traffic spikes. Broadcom's highest-tier support tier, VCF Forte Support, will underpin the SLO commitments.

The second area is security. DOCOMO cited increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks and the rise of AI-driven threats as key drivers. VCF's continuous patching capabilities, combined with AIOps-based anomaly detection and dedicated Support Account Managers, are intended to shorten the window between threat identification and remediation.

The third area is service delivery speed. By adopting VMware vSphere Kubernetes Service, DOCOMO plans to run virtual machines and containers on a shared platform, automating provisioning, testing and release pipelines to compress the cycle time for new customer-facing features. The press release also references future integration of AI workloads, 6G and the IOWN (Innovative Optical and Wireless Network) initiative, a joint research programme led by NTT Group.

Paul Turner, chief product officer of Broadcom's VMware Cloud Foundation division, said the agreement "reflects our shared commitment to continuously enhancing DOCOMO's service infrastructure over the long term," adding that Broadcom will provide "a private cloud platform that runs virtual machines, containers, and AI workloads on a common foundation."

Market context and competitive landscape

The deal is significant for Broadcom as it seeks to demonstrate enterprise and carrier-grade commitment to VCF following the contentious 2023 acquisition of VMware, which drew scrutiny from regulators in the EU, UK and US. A number of large VMware customers publicly raised concerns about post-acquisition licensing changes, making high-profile, long-term renewals strategically important for Broadcom's narrative around customer retention.

For DOCOMO, the decision to double down on private cloud rather than shift workloads to a hyperscaler reflects a broader pattern among telecoms operators in regulated markets, where data sovereignty, latency and security obligations make public cloud migration complex. DOCOMO's parent, NTT Group, has separately invested heavily in its own data-centre and network infrastructure, and a 10-year private cloud commitment aligns with that capital discipline.

In the enterprise private cloud space, VCF competes with Red Hat OpenShift on bare metal, Nutanix Cloud Platform and, increasingly, purpose-built hyperscaler outposts from AWS, Azure and Google. Telcos represent a highly attractive segment for private cloud vendors because of their scale, reliability requirements and multi-decade investment horizons.

The agreement also positions Broadcom ahead of DOCOMO's anticipated 6G build-out, which NTT Group has been developing alongside Japanese government partners. Infrastructure vendors that embed themselves at the network core ahead of a generational upgrade cycle typically secure durable revenue streams, making the 10-year term commercially meaningful beyond its face value.

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