- Fujitsu automates COBOL documentation, reducing analysis time by 97%
- The system generates design documents without requiring extensive programming experience.
- Knowledge Graph retrieval reduces hallucinations and improves documentation integrity
Fujitsu has introduced a new generative AI service that analyzes COBOL and other legacy source code, automatically producing design documents in minutes instead of hours.
The system can automatically operate and produce design documents without expert knowledge, reducing dependence on specialized human programmers.
The company says Fujitsu Application Transform powered by Fujitsu Kozuchi eliminates the need for extensive manual review, reducing the time needed to understand complex source code by approximately 97%.
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Improvements in accuracy and readability.
The service aims to provide a clear understanding of the specifications of existing systems, offering organizations a practical tool to support modernization strategies efficiently.
Compared to analysis performed solely with general generative AI tools, Fujitsu’s proprietary solution improves the quality of generated documentation.
This system links large volumes of source code through a Knowledge Graph: Enhanced retrieval system.
With this, it prevents omissions and hallucinations, ensuring that the generated design documents reflect all relevant details of the system.
This approach improves completeness by 95% and increases readability by 60%, producing documentation that is easier for teams to interpret and act on.
These improvements are particularly critical when it comes to COBOL, a programming language designed by Dr. Grace Hopper in 1959 that has approximately 850 billion lines of code.
Although it is more than 65 years old, COBOL is still widely used and companies continue to rely heavily on this venerable programming system.
It often powers the core transaction systems of banks, insurers, and government agencies without public visibility.
During the pandemic, the United States raised the prospect of a shortage of COBOL programmers to help manage critical systems, showing its importance.
Before the Fujitsu system, Anthropic noted that AI could help keep COBOL running for a long time.
Fujitsu plans to provide support services to guide organizations in effectively implementing the system; This year, the company intends to introduce features to rebuild existing source code for future use.
The system will automatically rewrite the code and support continuous operation and maintenance.
This sequential development ensures that companies can not only understand legacy systems but also adapt and maintain them with minimal manual intervention.
“We view this announcement as an initiative that realistically advances the modernization of our legacy systems…we have come to recognize the potential of this technology,” said Toshihiro Horiuchi, chief executive officer of SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.
For many engineering teams, this announcement represents a clear advantage, but IBM, a major provider of mainframes and COBOL-powered enterprise systems, needs to review its strategy or risk being outpaced in automated modernization of legacy systems.
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