Japan’s information technology systems company NEC Corp. said today it’s acquiring Denmark’s KMD Holding in a deal valued at 8 billion Danish Kroner ($1.22 billion).

The deal, which is NEC’s second-largest acquisition ever, is expected to be finalized in February and will help the firm to tap into the growing public-sector demand for digital services.

With European governments said to be accelerating a shift toward digital services, NEC said the plan is to make KMD’s software a “common platform” by combining it with its own biometric and artificial intelligence technologies.

KMD does big business in Denmark, where it’s helped that country’s government implement a range of digital services. It’s said to have a 17 percent share of the market for government IT systems and a 43 percent share of the market for local governments.

“Through this acquisition, NEC will acquire a business model that leverages platforms in the digital government domain,” NEC President and Chief Executive Takashi Niino said in a statement. The deal would also bring NEC closer to its goal of “lifting annual sales in its safety business overseas to 200 billion yen ($1.81 billion) in the year ending in March 2021,” Niino added.

NEC had previously outlined plans to spend 200 billion yen on foreign acquisitions. In January, it acquired a U.K.-based IT services firm called Northgate Public Services Ltd. for about $600 million.

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