Hitachi India plans to increase its workforce by more than 5,000 employees over the next five years.
Putting its faith in rapid infrastructure development and digital transformation in India, Bharat Kaushal, executive chairman of Hitachi India, elaborated during the World Economic Forum in Davos that Hitachi’s India investments will span energy, artificial intelligence, and resources and will be integrated into the company’s global centres of excellence.
Presently, Hitachi India has 42,000 employees across various businesses. The new hiring drive is part of the company’s commitment to capitalise on surging investment in India’s energy and rail sectors. Hitachi India also has an eye on growing adoption of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and industrial automation.
India has emerged as a key growth market for Hitachi, which is targeting expansion not only in manufacturing but also through the delivery of digitally enabled services. The government’s push to upgrade urban infrastructure and modernise the energy grid has attracted multibillion-dollar commitments from Japanese and other overseas firms.
Kaushal said that Hitachi India is determined to export scalable, affordable solutions worldwide after successfully deploying them in India. With rising uncertainty from geopolitical events that have disrupted supply chains and trade links, the expansion is certainly a move to watch.
“There is a huge uncertainty, and everyone’s rethinking across the world,” Kaushal said. “In India, you’ve kind of conquered the chaos better, or you’re in a better position to conquer the chaos.”
As part of the “China plus one” drive, the Indian government has encouraged firms to manufacture locally to avoid over-reliance on China as a manufacturing base. However, as Kaushal explained, this is not as easy as it sounds.
“It’s about an ecosystem, one China already has in a very robust manner,” he shared. However, with global supply chains continuing to be reshaped, Kaushal said he believed India’s energy, rail, digital, artificial intelligence and service sectors were in the best position to benefit.
