HITACHI LTD

Founding (1910–1945)

Founded in 1910 in Ibaraki Prefecture by electrical engineer Namihei Odaira, Hitachi's first product was a 4-kilowatt induction motor, designed for copper mining. Originally an in-house venture of Fusanosuke Kuhara 's mining company, Hitachi became independent in 1911 and moved its headquarters to Tokyo in 1918. The company's name 'Hitachi', combining the kanji for 'sun' (日, hi ) and 'rise' (立, tachi ), was coined by Odaira. While industrial machinery in Japan was usually powered by steam at the time, Odaira built water power stations in the mine and electrified almost all facilities in the factory. The company developed various electrical equipment later in its history. In 1924, Hitachi completed Japan's first mainline electric locomotive ( JNR Class ED15 ). In 1932, the company started manufacturing elevators and electric refrigerators.

The company also manufactured parts for the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces, such as the Hitachi Hatsukaze plane engine (produced from 1929 until the end of World War II ) for both the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy.

Post-war reconstruction and expansion (1945–1990)

World War II and its aftermath significantly impacted Hitachi, leading to the destruction of factories, post-war internal discord, and the removal of founder Namihei Odaira by the Allied occupation forces. Hitachi went public in 1949, listing on the Tokyo Exchange (TYO:6501). Odaira returned to the company in 1951 when the purge of key pre-war Japanese figures ended. However, he died in October of the same year at age 77. In 1949, Hitachi built its first power shovel, marking the start of what is now Hitachi Construction Machinery. In 1960, Hitachi developed the world's first electric train seat reservation system, MARS-1, for Japanese National Railways (JNR), allowing nationwide booking for express train seats. Around the same time, Hitachi began expanding its business overseas, with the establishment of Hitachi America, Ltd. 1959. In 1961, Hitachi began selling fully-automated washing machines and completed its first experimental nuclear reactor.

In 1964, the world's first high-speed railway line, the Shinkansen, opened. Hitachi not only built the Series 0 rolling stock but also played a crucial part in developing the Automatic Train Control system (ATC) and the Computer-Aided Traffic Control System [ ja ] (COMTRAC). COMTRAC was the first Programmed Traffic Control [ ja ] (PTC) system, a real-time automatic control system to control rail transport, which was installed on JNR's Tokaido Shinkansen and Sanyo Shinkansen lines simultaneously with the extension from Shin-Osaka Station to Okayama Station in 1972. In 1977, Hitachi completed the world's first fully MOX -fuelled nuclear power station, Fugen. MOX was seen as an efficient way of utilising plutonium from nuclear waste, which would otherwise have to be stored in security to ensure that it is not used to build nuclear weapons.

In 1978, Hitachi's Twin-Well Hi- CMOS process ushered in a new era in the global semiconductor industry. For instance, the Hitachi HM6147 chip, developed by a Hitachi team led by Toshiaki Masuhara, was able to match the Intel's flagship 2147 HMOS's performance with 87 per cent less power. Until the early 1980s, American semiconductor producers were focusing on the development and production of NMOS transistors, with which it dominated the global market, while Hitachi invested heavily in developing efficient CMOS transistors. This success led to the world's three largest manufacturers by revenue all being Japanese companies by 1987, amongst which Hitachi was counted. Hitachi Europe, Ltd. was established in 1982.

In 1989, Hitachi Research Lab engineers performed the famous two-slit experiment using its new electron-transmitting display technology, with the goal to see what happens when individual electrons pass through a double-slit, one at a time — testing whether interference (a wave behavior) still appears even when there are no pairs of electrons to “interfere” with each other. What they saw at first, showed random dots on the screen, one by one. However, over time — as more electrons were fired — a pattern of alternating bright and dark bands appeared. This was the same interference pattern seen in Young’s light experiment.

2000s

In 2001, the contactless fare card system Suica was introduced at 424 JR East stations throughout the Greater Tokyo Area. While the card itself was developed using Sony 's FeliCa system, Hitachi was responsible for building the server-side system. Other contactless fare card systems such as ICOCA and PASMO have been introduced throughout the country since, almost all of which are modelled after Suica and thus mutually compatible. It is now widely used as a contactless payment system in non-railway business as well, and Hitachi has been involved in the series of developments in this area. At the CES 2007, Hitachi revealed the first consumer HDD with a storage of 1 TB, which was released in the same year.

In the 2008 fiscal year, Hitachi lost US$7.8 billion, the largest corporate loss in Japanese history up to that point. Since its zenith in the 1980s and 1990s, a number of departments had suffered a decline in efficiency. However, being one of the largest conglomerates in the world at the time, conflicts of interest existed across the company, making it difficult to implement fundamental solutions. These delays in essential reforms proved detrimental when facing the 2008 financial crisis and led to the record loss. This prompted Hitachi to restructure and sell a number of divisions and businesses under the leadership of Takashi Kawamura. From 2008 to 2018, Hitachi reduced the number of its listed group companies and consolidated subsidiaries in Japan from 22 to 4 and around 400 to 202, respectively, through restructuring and sell-offs. It plans to become a company specializing in IT and infrastructure maintenance in the near future.

2010s

In March 2011, Hitachi agreed to sell its hard disk drive subsidiary, HGST, to Western Digital for a combination of cash and shares worth US$4.3 billion. Due to concerns of a duopoly of WD and Seagate Technology by the EU Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, Hitachi's 3.5" HDD division was sold to Toshiba. The transaction was completed in March 2012.

In January 2012, Hitachi announced it would stop producing televisions in Japan. In September 2012, Hitachi announced that it had invented a long-term data storage made out of quartz glass that was capable of preserving information for millions of years. In October 2012, Hitachi agreed to acquire the United Kingdom-based nuclear energy company Horizon Nuclear Power, which plans to construct up to six nuclear power plants in the UK, from E.ON and RWE for £700 million. In November 2012, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries agreed to merge their thermal power generation businesses into a joint venture to be owned 65% by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and 35% by Hitachi. The joint venture named Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) began operations in February 2014. In 2020 Hitachi transferred its share of the venture to MHI.

In October 2015, Hitachi completed a deal with Johnson Controls to form a joint venture that would take over Hitachi's HVAC business. Hitachi maintained a 40% stake in the resulting company, Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning. In May 2016, Hitachi announced it was investing $2.8 billion into its IoT interests. Hitachi’s rail business in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom, expanded in the 2010s, with Hitachi Newton Aycliffe starting operations in October 2015.

Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011 and the extended temporary closure of most Japanese nuclear plants, Hitachi's nuclear business became unprofitable and in 2016 Hitachi CEO Toshiaki Higashihara argued Japan should consider a merger of the various competing nuclear businesses. Hitachi is taking for 2016 an estimated ¥65 billion write-off in value of a SILEX technology laser uranium enrichment joint venture with General Electric.

In February 2017, Hitachi and Honda announced a partnership to develop, produce and sell motors for electric vehicles. Also in 2017, private equity firm KKR bought Hitachi Kokusai's (itself a subsidiary of Hitachi) semiconductor equipment division, becoming Kokusai Electric. In 2019, Applied Materials announced that it would acquire Kokusai Electric from KKR for US$2.2 billion. The deal was later terminated in 2021. In 2017, KKR also bought Hitachi's power tools subsidiary Hitachi Koki for US$1.3 billion, changing its name to Koki Holdings (HiKOKI) and marketing its tools as Metabo HPT in the US market. In 2018, Hitachi stopped selling televisions in Japan because its market share had dropped to 1%, opting to sell Sony TVs through its existing dealer network. On March 14, 2018, Zoomdata announced its partnership with Hitachi INS Software to help develop big data analytics market in Japan.

In December 2018, Hitachi Ltd. announced it would take over 80% of ABB 's power grid division for $6.4 billion renaming it Hitachi-ABB Power Grids in the process. In October 2021, the enterprise was rebranded Hitachi Energy. In 2019, Hitachi sold its medical imaging business to Fujifilm for US$1.7 billion. Showa Denko bought Hitachi Chemical from Hitachi and other shareholders, at US$42.97 per share. Until then, Hitachi Chemical had been considered to be a core unit of the group. Hitachi also suspended the ABWR development by its British subsidiary Horizon Nuclear Power as it did not provide adequate "economic rationality as a private enterprise" to proceed. In October 2019, the talks between Honda and Hitachi to consolidate their four automotive parts businesses, Showa, Nissin and Keihin of the former and the latter's Hitachi Automotive Systems, have reportedly begun, resulting in the creation of a "mega supplier" named Hitachi Astemo incorporated in January 2021.

2020s

In March 2020, an improved version of the L0 Series SCMaglev rolling stock for the Chuo Shinkansen was introduced, marking the first magnetically levitated train manufactured by Hitachi. In September 2020, Hitachi abandoned plans to create nuclear power plants in Gloucestershire and Wales due to issues with funding due to the impact of COVID-19. In the same month, Hitachi Capital agreed to be bought by its second-largest shareholder, business partner, and former rival Mitsubishi UFJ Lease, which invested in the Hitachi subsidiary in 2016. In November 2020, it announced that Hitachi Metals and Hitachi Construction Machinery, both being some of the last remaining listed subsidiaries, will likely be detached from the group according to the restructuring plan. In December, Hitachi sold a 60% stake in its overseas home appliance business to Turkish Arcelik for US$300 million. In December 2021, it was announced by OPG that it had selected GE-Hitachi to construct two BWRX-300 reactors at the Darlington site in Ontario, Canada. OPG and GE-Hitachi will be collaborating on the design, planning and preparation of license materials for the construction of Canada's first SMR which is planned to enter operation in 2028.

Hitachi, with its focus on energy, information technology, and infrastructure, has seen a significant improvement in profitability since the record loss in 2009. Reflecting this, Hitachi's market capitalisation has more than octupled since 2010, becoming the fourth largest company in Japan by market capitalisation in June 2024.

In July 2024, Bosch announced the acquisition of the Johnson Controls–Hitachi Air Conditioning (JCH) joint venture—comprising Johnson Controls ' 60% and Hitachi's 40%. The deal, Bosch's largest-ever acquisition. It includes 16 manufacturing plants and 12 engineering centers across 30+ countries, supporting about 12,000 employees; together with Bosch's current team, the combined unit will comprise over 26,000 staff. Bosch will continue selling under the Hitachi brands in Asia via long-term licensing and retain manufacturing facilities like the Shimizu plant in Japan under its control. Closing is expected in the next 12 months, pending regulatory approvals, with strategic aims of expanding Bosch's presence in HVAC globally, especially in the U.S. and Asia, and driving growth through energy-efficient, low-carbon heating and cooling solutions.

In September 2025, Hitachi announced a $457 million investment to expand its South Boston transformer manufacturing facility in order to build more power grid components.