Hitachi merges GlobalLogic into new 35,000-strong digital arm

Hitachi will fold GlobalLogic and Hitachi Digital Services into a single company, Hitachi Digital, with about 35,000 professionals across 27 countries and more than 880 active clients, starting operations on 1 April 2027.

The Japanese industrial and technology group announced the move on 10 November 2026. It brings two US subsidiaries under one Hitachi brand and stitches together GlobalLogic's digital engineering business with Hitachi Digital Services' enterprise and operational technology services. For a company that sells trains, power systems and factory equipment, this is a bid to sell the software and AI layer that sits on top of all of it — a market where industrial rivals are racing to bundle AI with hardware.

Who is Anand Birje and what will he run?

Anand Birje will serve as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Hitachi Digital. He framed the merged company as an answer to a common client complaint: too many vendors, none of whom own a problem end to end.

"Our clients need one partner who understands how an industry works, maintains deep technology ecosystem relationships, while engineering what's new, modernising what's underneath and keeping it all running across the enterprise," Birje said.

The new company will sit within Hitachi's wider group strategy focused on digital services and social infrastructure. Its remit spans software and product engineering, enterprise systems and operational support. In plain terms, that means building new software, updating the old systems underneath it, and keeping both running.

"Hitachi Digital brings digital engineering and operations together as one company, at global scale, with the industrial depth of Hitachi behind us. We can be our clients' one trusted partner from strategy through operations, engineering what the world depends on," Birje said.

The pitch is consolidation: one contract, one provider, from strategy through engineering to daily operations.

What service lines will Hitachi Digital actually sell?

The announcement named four focus areas:

• Physical AI — AI embedded in machines, robots and physical environments
• Data and Intelligence — data platforms and analytics
• Cloud and Site Reliability Engineering — cloud infrastructure and keeping systems up
• Enterprise Applications — the business software layer

The company will also push adoption of Lumada 3.0, Hitachi's platform and services strategy for client innovation. Growing Lumada 3.0 is an explicit goal of the merger, according to Hitachi executive Jun Abe.

A distinctive piece of the operating model is what Hitachi calls Forward Deployed Engineers, or FDEs. These teams work directly inside client operating environments, and include AI specialists, data scientists and engineers working alongside clients and technology partners in enterprise and industrial settings. The idea is that AI deployments in factories, railways or power grids fail when the people building them don't understand the physical plant — so Hitachi is putting the engineers where the machines are.

Hitachi expects the combined business to concentrate on three industrial sectors: manufacturing, mobility and energy. It will also serve internal projects across the Hitachi group, which matters because group-related demand is already growing fast.

Why is the AI angle central to this?

Hitachi's stated rationale leans on operational technology expertise from the wider group — knowledge of how plants, grids and rail systems actually work — as the differentiator for AI deployments. The company said this OT depth would support both enterprise AI and Physical AI projects in industrial settings.

The commercial signal is already visible. Hitachi said synergy revenue with the Hitachi group rose 46 per cent year on year in the first half. That figure explains the timing: internal demand for digital services is scaling fast enough that Hitachi wants a single entity to capture it.

Hitachi also cited external validation from ISG Research, which has ranked the two legacy businesses in areas including intelligent robotics and Physical AI services, digital engineering services, and generative AI services.

"Hitachi Digital Services has been recognised for connecting edge intelligence, robotics and AI-driven decision layers into secure, mission-critical environments. GlobalLogic has demonstrated differentiated strength across augmented design, R&D services, intelligent operations and connected experience, and integrated platform and application services by leading with consulting, AI-first engineering and deep domain expertise. These outcomes are the result of what is now Hitachi Digital's differentiation - a fusion of deep industrial heritage with enterprise-grade AI orchestration," said Gowtham Sampath, Assistant Director and Principal Analyst at ISG Research.

Sampath's framing captures the bet: Hitachi is wagering that industrial know-how, not raw model capability, is the scarce ingredient in enterprise AI.

What does this mean for Hitachi's broader strategy?

The launch adds another layer to Hitachi's effort to align software, operational technology and infrastructure expertise under one digital strategy. Jun Abe, Executive Vice President and Head of the Digital Systems & Services Sector at Hitachi, positioned the new company as the delivery vehicle for end-to-end work spanning enterprise AI and industrial applications.

"With the launch of Hitachi Digital, Hitachi will evolve into a global digital services company capable of providing end-to-end solutions ranging from enterprise AI to Physical AI," Abe said.

"By uniting GlobalLogic's digital engineering with Hitachi Digital Services' enterprise and operational expertise, and leveraging the FDE team as a driving force, together with Hitachi's OT and domain knowledge in social infrastructure, we will work alongside clients throughout their business transformation and help maximise value creation. Through these efforts, we will strongly advance our clients' digital transformation globally, drive the growth of Lumada 3.0 and contribute to the harmonised society envisioned in Hitachi's management plan, 'Inspire 2027,'" Abe said.

The reference to "Inspire 2027" is not incidental. Hitachi's management plan runs on the same horizon as the new company's first full operating year, and the merger is one of the plan's structural moves.

Hitachi bought GlobalLogic in 2021 for roughly $9.6 billion — its largest software acquisition — and has spent the years since integrating it into industrial operations rather than running it as a standalone IT services shop. Hitachi Digital is the next step in that consolidation: GlobalLogic's engineering talent, Hitachi Digital Services' enterprise operations muscle, and the group's OT depth combined into one brand aimed at factories, railways and power grids rather than purely digital-native customers.

What happens next?

The clock now runs toward 1 April 2027, when the two US subsidiaries formally merge. Between announcement and launch, the real work is integration — combining service lines, aligning the FDE model across 27 countries and proving that a 35,000-person organisation can sell AI projects as one accountable partner rather than two. If Hitachi's 46 per cent synergy growth holds, the internal pipeline alone gives Hitachi Digital a running start when it opens for business.