Kyocera Expanding Kokubu Campus with New R&D Center

Kyocera Corporation plans to start construction of a new 22,902-square-meter research and development center in January 2021 at its Kokubu campus in Kirishima City, Kagoshima, Japan. Kyocera has executed a location agreement with the mayor of Kirishima City for the new R&D center, which will focus on new innovations in the fields of information and communications, environmental preservation and smart energy.

The Kokubu campus is already an innovation hub and site of three strategic R&D groups: Kyocera’s Monozukuri R&D Laboratory, which focuses on advanced material technologies; its Production Technology Division, focusing on manufacturing process innovation; and its Analysis Center, which develops simulation and evaluation technologies. R&D at the campus currently includes programs centered on 5G smartphone technology, electronic and semiconductor components used in IoT devices and key components for new smart energy technologies – like cell stacks for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs). Intellectual property developed on the campus has found a wide range of applications in the automotive, aerospace, medical and healthcare fields.

Through greater collaboration among these R&D operations, Kyocera plans to establish a new platform to accelerate development and production efforts, with comprehensive support for manufacturing new products, promoting factory automation and improving manufacturing efficiencies. Kyocera will position the new facility specifically as an incubator for open innovation, sharing technical information for human resource development and networking with inventors outside of Kyocera.

Kyocera currently projects that this new R&D center will open in September 2022.