Nikkei BP, Ltd. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President & CEO: Tetsuya Iguchi), publisher of "Nikkei Computer," the comprehensive information magazine for IT professionals, has announced the winners of the "IT Japan Award 2026," which recognizes outstanding IT case studies. The IT Japan Award has been presented annually by Nikkei Computer since 2007 with the aim of "discovering companies and organizations that have achieved remarkable results by building and utilizing information systems, and widely sharing their success know-how." Entries are selected from IT utilization articles published in "Nikkei Computer" and the digital media "Nikkei xTECH," which conveys the latest developments in technology and business, over the past year, and are judged by external reviewers. This year's IT Japan Award 2026, the 20th iteration, held its judging session on May 14 (Thu). Based on the three judging criteria: "Contribution to Management Innovation and Business Reform," "Originality in System Construction and Utilization," and "Advancement of Adopted Technologies and Methods," the following companies were selected, including JFE Steel Corporation, which completed its core system migration project running on mainframes at its steelworks and manufacturing plants nationwide over a period of 5 years and 2 months. The award recipients include one Grand Prize winner, one Runner-up Prize winner, and five Special Prize winners. [Award Winners] ● Grand Prize JFE Steel Corporation Open-sourced a core system with a total of 200 million steps, completed in 5 years and 2 months ● Runner-up Prize Suzukama Co., Ltd. Utilizing everything from AI-OCR to Generative AI; all employees, regardless of position or tenure, are DX担当 (DX personnel) ● Special Prize ASAHI GROUP HOLDINGS, LTD. Integrated and built a global procurement platform, achieving cost savings of 14.7 billion yen APA Hotel Ltd. APA's little-known IT: A maverick technology expert in the hotel industry MOL (Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Lt