Hitachi

Hitachi is a Japanese manufacturing corporation that comprises more than 1,000 subsidiaries, including 335 corporations overseas. Hitachi Group's companies operate across a number of industries, including HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), automation, architecture and engineering, consulting, rail, data, energy, finance, and more.

Pump production was one of Hitachi's first endeavors, having its roots in 1907 with The Tokyo Tsukudajima Engineering Works, the company's predecessor that merged with Hitachi in 1918. Since then, Hitachi has produced pumps for a wide range of uses, including mining, civil engineering, water and sewage services, agriculture, buildings, factories, and households.

In 1910, the company's founder, Namihei Odaira, ran an electrical repair shop at a copper mine northeast of Tokyo. In the course of carrying out repairs of the mine's machinery, Odaira worked on developing experimental designs, and that same year, he made the 5-horsepower (3.7-kilowatt) electric motor, which became the first such product to become domestically produced. Odaira established his own company in 1912 under the name Hitachi, having combined two kanji characters, hi meaning “sun” and tachi meaning “rise,” and encircling them to form the original company logo.

Odaira photographed with workers at one of the company's first sites

On November 14, 1919, a major fire incident took place at the Hitachi Works (presently the Hitachi office). The main factory, an office, and a warehouse were completely destroyed, as well as most finished products and works in progress.

Hitachi initially focused on manufacturing heavy electrical equipment and industrial machinery. Among motors, generators, pumps, electrical cables, and transformers, the company produced Japan’s first large-scale direct-current locomotives (1924). In the 1930s, Hitachi received substantial government funding which enabled the company to expand into the areas of metallurgy and communications equipment manufacturing.

In 1926, Hitachi successfully mass-produced an electric fan ten years after its development was initiated, and 5,500 units were manufactured in that year. Thirty units were exported to the U.S., making this Hitachi's first export product.

In the aftermath of World War II, Hitachi played a key role in the reconstruction of Japan’s industrial infrastructure, particularly in the generation of power. The company also built mining equipment, trains to transport coal to power plants, and equipment for generating electricity.

As the Japanese economy recovered in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Hitachi underwent a shift in focus from industrial machinery to consumer goods, such as home appliances, air conditioners, and transistor radios. In 1959, Hitachi initiated operations in the United States with Hitachi America, Ltd. In 1969, Hitachi commenced development and mass production of all-transistor color televisions, owing to licensed technology from RCA Corporation.

Hitachi developed its first transistor-based computer in 1959. Throughout the next three decades, in a series of projects sponsored by Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Hitachi teamed with other Japanese companies to develop and manufacture semiconductor chips, microprocessors, computers, and supercomputers. In 1974, Hitachi manufactured the first in a series of general-purpose mainframe computers, and in 1982 announced the development of its first supercomputer.

In 1982, Hitachi was involved in a controversy an FBI sting operation in Santa Clara, California, led to the arrest of six California-based Hitachi executives and the indictment of twelve more Japan-based executives for paying an undercover agent $648,000 to steal technical data on new International Business Machines Corp. computers. All the Hitachi executives pleaded guilty and were fined in 1983. IBM settled its civil lawsuit against Hitachi out of court. In addition to winning substantial monetary damages, IBM won the right to inspect Hitachi’s new products for five years for any design infringements.

In the late 1980s, Hitachi continued to invest efforts in the chip market, entering into a partnership with Texas Instruments Incorporated to design and produce high-performance microprocessors and computer memory 16-megabit DRAM chips. It also purchased National Advanced Systems from National Semiconductor, renaming it Hitachi Data Systems, with the intention to market Hitachi products in the U.S., such as memory chips, disk drives, and other components.

From its earliest days, Hitachi invested in research and development. By 1993, Hitachi was operating thirty-eight research laboratories and was one of the leading patent recipients in the U.S. By then, Hitachi’s involvement became prevalent in a variety of large-scale manufacturing operations, from computer-aided control systems for high-speed trains and nuclear reactors to fibre-optic data-transmission equipment to personal fax machines and digital cameras.

Hitachi Environmental Innovation 2050 is the company's project comprising a set of long-term environmental targets that aim to achieve carbon neutrality across Hitachi's value chain by 2050. The project consists of implementing various initiatives at Hitachi's business sites and investments in the company's decarbonization business, contributing to the reduction of CO2 emissions through collaboration with the company's customers and partners.