Microsoft and Hitachi come together for generative AI

Microsoft has teamed up with Hitachi quite a few times in the last two decades, but the Lumada IoT platform is still a fresh name. The goal of this solution is to provide a wide range of features that use AI to optimize data collection, analysis, management, and visualization. This week, the two tech giants unveiled a new three-year strategic partnership that "will focus on creating innovative industry solutions that deliver transformative outcomes for businesses and society" and is worth billions.

In FY2024, the planned revenue of the Lumada business, which has an impact on the 270,000 Hitachi Group employees, is expected to fall only 0.1 short of the $19 billion threshold. The products that Hitachi Group will embed into the Lumada platform are Microsoft Cloud, Azure Open AI Service, Dynamics 365, Copilot for Microsoft 365, and GitHub Copilot. During the period of this new partnership, more than 50,000 "GenAI Professionals" will be trained on advanced AI skills by Hitachi. However, the training materials and methods will also include solutions provided by Microsoft.

Hitachi's Lumada-branded solutions are being used in the energy and mobility sectors, but they also touch many other industries. According to Microsoft and Hitachi, the upcoming AI-powered improvements are expected to have a positive impact on both businesses and society overall. This new partnership is also expected to bring joint projects aimed at cloud services. In this area, Microsoft and Hitachi are planning to improve security while reducing the environmental footprint of the data centers involved.

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