NEC Corporation

NEC Corporation is a multi-national information technologies company headquarterd in Minato -ku, Tokyo, Japan. It is an internet solutions business involved in the manufacture and sales of computers, communications equipment, electronic devices and software, including the Versa notebooks for the international market and the Lavie series for Japanese market. NEC was also the creator of the Earth Simulator, the fastest supercomputer in the world at the time. NEC is a part of the Sumitomo Group.

In 1980 NEC created the first digital signal processor, the NEC µPD7710. Over the past five years NEC has ranked consistently in the top 4 companies for number of U.S. patents issued, averaging 1764 granted each year.

The company was formerly known as Nippon Electric Company, Limited (Jp. 日本電気株式会社 Nippon Denki Kabushikikaisha), before it was renamed in 1983. It still goes by the old name in Japan. NEC was founded by Kunihiko Iwadare and others. One of the founding directors was from the United States. NEC was established with Western Electric Company to become the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital. Western Electric was represented on the NEC board by Walter Tenney Carleton.