NTT’s ‘Parallel Travel’ offers immersive innovation

The NTT Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka is drawing significant attention for its groundbreaking “Parallel Travel” concept. Powered by NTT’s next-generation communication infrastructure IOWN (Innovative Optical and Wireless Network), the pavilion offers an immersive experience that transports visitors through time and space. The cutting-edge installation engages not only sight, sound and touch, but also taps into human emotions — allowing guests to physically sense the future of communication.

Spanning 3,500 square meters, the NTT Pavilion boasts the largest footprint of any privately sponsored installation at the expo. Inside, the experience unfolds across three sequential zones exploring how communication may evolve in the years ahead.

The journey begins in Zone 1, where humanity’s enduring desire to connect across distances is brought to life through immersive visuals and dramatic staging on a large screen. This installation not only retraces the history of communication tools, but also explores the emotional and spatial disconnects that conventional technologies have struggled to bridge. Visitors are encouraged to reflect both intellectually and emotionally on what it truly means to connect.

In Zone 2, visitors witness a pathbreaking performance held entirely within a 3D virtual space. Headlining the show is Perfume, Japan’s iconic techno-pop trio. By wearing 3D glasses, visitors become fully immersed in a dynamic, multisensory performance that blends music, visuals and cutting-edge communications technology — an unforgettable experience.

The world-first live 3D transmission of their performance was conducted on April 2. Since then, visitors have experienced a high-resolution recorded version.

Enabled by IOWN, every movement of Perfume’s members — along with the vibrations of the stage, lighting effects and even spatial depth — was converted into data and transmitted in real time from a studio in the Osaka city of Suita to the pavilion in Yumeshima, where it was re-created in stunning detail.

The performance becomes truly immersive at the venue thanks to a floor embedded with vibrators, 360-degree visuals, surround sound and real-time motion and lighting data. These elements combine to create the thrilling sensation that Perfume is dancing right before your eyes.

Adding to the sensory experience is the Dynamic Curtain Display, a responsive fabric installation covering the exterior of the pavilion. Small cameras near the stage capture audience members’ facial expressions, which are sent to the IOWN Photonic Disaggregated Computing system at NTT West’s headquarters. There, the data is instantly analyzed by AI and the results are used to animate the curtain in real time. The effect is mesmerizing: The pavilion appears to pulse and shift in sync with the crowd’s collective emotions.

This marks the world’s first public use of photonics-electronics convergence devices, a core technology of IOWN’s optical computing platform. Compared to conventional electronic systems, it achieves a dramatic leap in both performance and sustainability, consuming just one-eighth the power.

The final zone offers a deeply personalized experience. Upon entering, each visitor has their full body photographed and scanned. This data is then used to create a virtual avatar — using technology called Another Me — that appears on a large screen within the space.

These avatars transcend barriers of language and culture, interacting with one another in a shared virtual environment. Together, they perform a harmonious song of hope, conveying a powerful message about unity and connection in a digitally connected world.

This experience represents one of the first real-world applications of digital twin computing, a core concept envisioned by NTT. Within this hybrid space, where virtual and physical realities intersect, visitors can visualize and experience new forms of connection, both with themselves and with others. Zone 3 invites visitors to explore a future of communication where the boundaries between digital and physical realities dissolve — where interactions in virtual space feed back into the real world, enriching human experience and deepening our sense of connection.

Building on this foundation, visitors can also experience Another Me Planet, an interactive installation that expands on the Another Me concept. Here, each person’s avatar appears in a simulated future profession and delivers a personalized message using a voice generated through NTT’s advanced speech synthesis technology and modeled on the visitor’s actual voice.

The experience also allows for open-ended conversation with Tsuzumi, NTT’s proprietary large language model. Visitors can engage in fluid, intelligent dialogue, reflecting the possibilities of seamless communication between humans and AI. By blending physical and virtual spaces, Another Me Planet offers a preview of how identity, imagination and technology may converge in the future.

Near the exit of Zone 3, an additional experience invites visitors to further reflect on the meaning of connection. In the installation, “The Touch of Life,” the pavilion is connected via IOWN’s All-Photonics Network to the Dynamic Equilibrium of Life Pavilion, located about a 10-minute walk away. Through the bidirectional transmission of visual, audio and biometric signals — such as heartbeats — visitors can experience a form of remote communication that conveys the very presence of life.

At the core of these immersive experiences is IOWN, an innovative communication infrastructure drawing global attention. Unlike conventional systems based on electrical signals, IOWN leverages optical technology to transmit enormous amounts of data at ultrahigh speeds. It also offers exceptional energy efficiency.

NTT is aiming to reduce network-related power consumption by a factor of 100 by the 2030s compared to current levels, an ambitious target that could significantly lower environmental impacts and contribute to a more sustainable society. As the number of connected devices continues to rise dramatically, IOWN is seen as a critical solution to the world’s escalating energy and bandwidth demands.

At its core, IOWN is built on three foundational technologies. The first is the All-Photonics Network, which by using light for all data transmission and processing can achieve dramatic gains in speed, capacity and efficiency. The second is digital twin computing, whose virtual replicas of people and systems can be used in simulations, forecasting and problem-solving. The third is the Cognitive Foundation, which orchestrates resources across the network to deliver information where and when needed, optimizing the system as a whole.

These technologies have the potential to transform a wide range of fields — including urban design, disaster response, health care, education and more. Its first implementation phase, IOWN 1.0, began in 2023 and is expected to evolve into IOWN 4.0 by the 2030s, delivering even greater capabilities and societal impact.

IOWN goes beyond faster speeds and lower latency. It seeks to connect not only people and places, but also emotions and even physical sensations. As communication technology enters an era where it quietly — yet deeply and unmistakably — reaches the human heart, the NTT Pavilion, along with the expo as a whole, offers visitors a glimpse into the emerging possibilities.

Back in 1970, at the first Osaka expo, the predecessor of NTT — the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corp. — introduced the “wireless telephone” at its Telecommunication Pavilion, offering a bold vision of the future of communications.

Fifty-five years later, NTT returns to Osaka with a renewed mission. This time, the vision goes beyond connecting voices — it seeks to bridge hearts, minds and experiences. Powered by its cutting-edge IOWN technologies, NTT is once again opening the door to entirely new possibilities for how we connect.