Technologies and R&D Message

Amidst increasingly complex environmental, social, and economic changes, companies are required to leverage their respective strengths and continuously create new value. Since its founding, DNP has created a diverse range of products and services based on printing technology, delivering the value that people desire to society at large. Moving forward, we will continue to combine the technologies we have cultivated over many years with cutting-edge technologies, including AI, and create new value that leads to sustainable growth through co-creation with our customers and partners.

DNP's definition of "INSATSU = printing" goes beyond simply printing text and images onto paper. It has evolved uniquely as a technology that creates new value by imbuing surfaces such as paper, film, and metal with diverse functions and information.

We view this technology as consisting of two elements: "printing" and "printing." "Printing" encompasses the technological domain of "designing value," including planning, design, information processing, and microfabrication. "Printing" encompasses the technological domain of "reproducing and mass-producing value with high precision," including precision coating and post-processing. Furthermore, peripheral technologies such as material development, evaluation, and analysis support these. By combining various technologies, we continuously create new value.

For 150 years since its founding, DNP has expanded into diverse business area, from printing on paper to industrial high-performance materials, medical and healthcare, semiconductors, digital interfaces, and mobility. This approach of combining technologies and continuously transforming them into new markets and customer value is what DNP calls "P&I Innovations" its business vision.

DNP's research and development fundamentally starts with business units that have direct contact with customers. Value creation begins when business units identify customer and market challenges and needs and connect them to the research and development division at headquarters. The research and development division is responsible for the "0 to 10" stage, from technology exploration and creation to practical application, and then transfers the results to the business units to drive business expansion from "10 to 100". Under a company-wide strategic design and theme selection, DNP consistently promotes research and development from research and development to commercialization, steadily transforming results into business value.

To support this system, we invested 42.2 billion yen in research and development in fiscal 2025. Over the next three years starting in fiscal 2026, we will continue investments totaling 120 billion yen, focusing business area on focusing management resources on core technologies that will become sources of future competitiveness.

Amidst the increasing globalization of cutting-edge research and development, talent, and customers and partners, DNP is strengthening its overseas R&D bases. In 2025, it will open bases in the Netherlands, and in 2026 in India, promoting R&D that leverages the unique characteristics of each region. At its Eindhoven, Netherlands base, DNP is focusing on the next-generation semiconductor field, acquiring cutting-edge technologies and global networks through collaboration with advanced research institutions and companies.

Furthermore, at our base within the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, we are promoting collaborative research primarily in the mobility and medical/healthcare sectors. In India, a growing market, we are combining local research infrastructure and human resources with DNP's core technologies to rapidly advance demonstration experiments and social implementation while engaging in research and development with a view to commercialization.

DNP positions intellectual property as a crucial management asset that forms the foundation of sustainable growth. From the conceptual stage of business strategy, we incorporate intellectual property strategies, and division business segment, development, and intellectual property division work together as a unified force, focusing on areas with strong growth potential. We strategically build a patent network encompassing core and related technologies to differentiate our businesses and improve earnings.

Furthermore, DNP understands social issues and customer needs through dialogue with top brands both domestically and internationally, and reflects these in its research and development and business development. A major strength of DNP is its ability to handle everything in-house, from material design to production processes, development, installation, and maintenance of production equipment. By integrating research and development with equipment development, DNP builds optimal production systems that balance productivity and quality, reliably realizing the value its customers demand. Moreover, by keeping its unique production processes a black box, DNP creates high barriers to entry, contributing to the competitiveness of its world-leading products that support the resolution of social issues and the creation of customer value.

DNP focuses its R&D resources on its business area of focus, including industrial high-performance materials, medical healthcare, semiconductors, digital interfaces, and mobility, accelerating the creation and commercialization of technologies. At the core of this effort are the individual personnel involved in research and development.

DNP's "INSATSU" possesses limitless potential to realize the value of information and functionality on its surface. We will further evolve and deepen our long-cultivated technological foundation in "printing" and "inking," while also combining it with cutting-edge technologies and diverse knowledge from both inside and outside the company to challenge ourselves to create new value. Through co-creation with our customers and partners, we will generate value that solves social issues and meets people's expectations, leading to a better future and sustainable growth.