Miyazaki Prefecture Selects HPE to Enhance Administrative Services with Dedicated On-Premises Generative AI

HPE (Japan Hewlett Packard G.K., Headquartered in Koto-ku, Tokyo; President and Managing Director: Hiroichi Mochizuki) announced that Miyazaki Prefecture has built an on-premises environment using HPE ProLiant servers running the private version of GBase provided by Sparticle Inc. as its dedicated in-house private generative AI infrastructure, and has begun utilizing it for administrative operations.

Miyazaki Prefecture, with a population of approximately 1.06 million across 26 municipalities, has an industrial structure centered on agriculture and livestock, supported by food processing, manufacturing, tourism, and services. Under the 'Miyazaki Prefectural Digitalization Promotion Plan - Miyazaki DX Plan (2024–2027),' the prefecture prioritizes security and reliability required for administrative service foundations. It is advancing the sophistication of administrative operations using digital technology, including utilizing on-premises generative AI for tasks such as payroll, travel expenses, and accounting.

Municipal operations involve highly sensitive information daily, requiring generative AI to be designed and operated under strict information management that does not involve data leakage to external parties. Miyazaki Prefecture has adopted an on-premises generative AI dedicated to internal use, with a policy to gradually expand the target operations and scope while fully verifying safety and operational aspects. The environment was adopted as a foundation to steadily advance efficiency and sophistication in administrative tasks while ensuring residents' trust by adhering to the prefecture's generative AI policy and maintaining information security.

Hirohito Nakanishi, Senior Staff of the Digital Strategy Promotion Team in the Digital Promotion Division, General Policy Department of Miyazaki Prefecture, stated: 'Miyazaki Prefecture is developing a local LLM environment as a foundation for safely sharing administrative knowledge and supporting staff operations. This system is positioned as a base capable of responding to future technological evolution through a flexible configuration compatible with open generative AI technologies. Even in checking application details with many documents and high difficulty, this system supports the professional judgment of staff, contributing to faster responses and reduced workloads, thereby improving administrative services. As future initiatives, we are expanding and strengthening the system for automating inquiry responses at the disaster response headquarters through an "AI Pharmacist" to assist inquiries about pharmaceutical use from doctors and others, and a "Disaster Response AI Chatbot for Disaster Response Personnel."'

The maintenance and management of this system for Miyazaki Prefecture are handled by Minami Nihon Network Co., Ltd. The system is built as a local LLM environment utilizing the private version of GBase provided by Sparticle Inc., based on the HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen11 equipped with high-performance NVIDIA accelerators. As a knowledge base for safely sharing administrative knowledge, the local LLM refers to official documents and operational manuals regarding application procedures and administrative systems through RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) and Agent mechanisms, supporting staff operations via chatbots. This design ensures the AI provides answers based on the underlying administrative information without making independent judgments or learning. Personal information is strictly managed to ensure it is not subject to AI processing.

Tatsuya Kaneda, CEO of Sparticle Inc., commented: 'We are pleased that Miyazaki Prefecture has adopted the private version of GBase. We believe Miyazaki's initiative is significant because it positions generative AI not just as an efficiency tool, but as a foundation for safely sharing administrative knowledge and supporting staff operations. Specifically, utilizing generative AI in a practical way based on on-premises operations while prioritizing information security provides important insights for other municipalities. Sparticle will continue to work with partners like HPE to support the use of generative AI that is practical, reliable, and effective in local government and regulated fields.'

Tomoko Kato, Executive Officer and General Manager of Digital Sales & Compute Business Unit at Japan Hewlett Packard G.K., added: 'We are honored that HPE's server infrastructure was selected for Miyazaki Prefecture's generative AI initiative, which prioritizes information security and reliability. As AI utilization accelerates across Japan, we find it deeply meaningful to be involved in building this system, which will serve as a model for future local government DX. HPE will continue to collaborate with Sparticle and other partners to support the diverse needs of our customers.'