Looking at labs: Japanese tech in the UK

In 2017, the Nikon brand turned 100 years old, having invested in the research and development of optics in order to create the lenses that it produces today. There is an optical lens in every Nikon product, including cameras, microscopes and telescopes.

Twenty years ago, Tatsuo Ishitoya, head of Nikon Optical and the former managing director, relocated from Japan to start up a lens laboratory in England. He chose Milton Keynes because of its central location in the country and accessibility to motorways for transporting and distributing the products, but also because there was a Japanese school located there that his children could go to.