The five-year agreement brings 500 Zentrova engineers into system modernisation projects for Japan's manufacturing and financial sectors and establishes a joint centre of excellence.
On 29 August 2026 in Tokyo, Zentrova Technologies and a major Japanese IT group signed a five-year strategic partnership agreement. The deal is a milestone for Zentrova after more than ten years of serving clients in Japan, a market that now accounts for around 38% of the company's revenue.
Scope of the partnership
Under the agreement, the two companies will jointly deliver system modernisation programmes for manufacturers, banks and insurers in Japan. Zentrova has committed to a dedicated team of 500 engineers by 2028, based in Hanoi, Da Nang and the Tokyo office.
- Legacy modernisation: rebuilding core applications written in older languages on a microservices architecture.
- Cloud migration: assessing, designing and executing moves to hybrid cloud infrastructure.
- AI-assisted testing: using large language models to generate test cases and analyse source code.
A joint centre of excellence
The partners will set up a joint centre of excellence in Hanoi dedicated to AI-assisted legacy transformation methods. The centre is scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2027 with 60 specialists, including Japanese engineers working side by side with the Vietnamese team.
Growing the bridge team
To support the scale of the partnership, Zentrova will expand its team of bridge engineers and technical interpreters from 70 to 150 people. Internal Japanese language training will also be stepped up, with the goal of 1,000 engineers reaching business-level proficiency by 2028.
Japanese clients put quality and commitment above everything else. This agreement recognises more than a decade of dedicated work by the Zentrova team, and it is a greater responsibility that we are ready to take on.
What it means for the 2030 strategy
The partnership supports Zentrova's goal of generating 60% of total revenue from international markets by 2030. Beyond Japan, the company is strengthening its presence in Singapore and Europe through its regional offices, aiming to be a long-term technology partner rather than simply a service provider.
The signing ceremony was attended by the leadership teams of both companies and by representatives of shared clients who have worked with them for many years. The partners will review progress jointly every six months.
