Hitachi Vantara reshuffles for hybrid cloud & AI focus

Hitachi Vantara has announced a strategic realignment designed to expedite its growth plan through an increased focus on hybrid cloud and generative artificial intelligence (AI). As part of the restructuring, Hitachi's IT Platform Products Management Division will be integrated into Hitachi Vantara to form a consolidated entity aiming to lead the market in data storage, infrastructure, and hybrid cloud management.

The reorganised Hitachi Vantara looks forward to utilising the extensive infrastructure and data storage expertise gained from both the manufacturing and the hybrid cloud sectors. By promoting a shared commitment to collaboration, the company aspires to drive meaningful business results for customers. The strategic merger will allow the technology firm to innovate and adjust in real-time to market needs, building on its established proficiency in the management of data across mission-critical environments.

The corporate reshuffle has been undertaken considering the rapid evolution of technologies like generative AI, which has resulted in an exponential increase in data processing requirements. Many businesses are reportedly grappling to cope with this new demand. As per a recent survey, approximately 88% of IT professionals are unable to support the rising number of AI-related requests within their organisations, while 90% encountered difficulties integrating AI with other systems.

Sheila Rohra, CEO of Hitachi Vantara, commented on the changes, "The rise of generative AI and the explosion in data processing power are pushing the pace of change, and many organisations are struggling to keep up. This next phase of business transformation is designed to help us accelerate our execution and scale our business to identify and capitalise on market opportunities in real-time." She also added that the new formation will strengthen the company's ability to deliver the "AI-driven data performance, reliability, and resiliency" required by customers across hybrid cloud environments.

Adding further muscle to the new organisational structure, Akinobu Shimada, the former president of Hitachi's IT Platform Products Management Division, has been appointed chairman of Hitachi Vantara. Speaking of the development, Shimada stated, "Our strong partnership across the organisations has helped to create the right synergy to formalise a Hitachi Vantara structure that brings R&D and engineering closer to our key markets around the globe." He expressed confidence in leveraging industry expertise and technical understanding to implement a unified digital infrastructure and AI strategy that would enable high-impact outcomes for customers and position the company for continued growth.

As a pioneer in developing hybrid cloud storage, Hitachi Vantara combines on-premises and cloud computing to achieve safety, high performance and reliability, and cost advantage in processing critical, large-scale data for complex business requirements. This includes the recent launch of a novel AI solution named Hitachi iQ in association with NVIDIA, which layers industry-specific capabilities on top of its AI solution stack.