Supply Side: Alstom, Hitachi, Ltd.

Joining Pride at Work Canada builds on Alstom’s existing programs to support an inclusive workplace for LGBTQ+ employees. (Alstom Photograph)

Alstom joins Pride at Work Canada (PaWC) to help support an inclusive workplace for LGBTQ+ employees. Also, Hitachi, Ltd. and Microsoft Corporation announce a three-year collaboration on AI (Artificial Intelligence).

Alstom

Alstom reported kicking off Pride Month (June) by joining PaWC, whose resources are slated to “help empower our employees and accelerate our efforts to create an inclusive and welcoming workplace for all.”

Alstom employees around the world will now have access to PaWC events, resources, and leadership programs, the company said June 3, while Alstom in Canada will benefit from PaWC’s Workplace Audit program “to benchmark and improve LGBTQ+ inclusion.” Additionally, Alstom said it will be able boost the recruitment of a diverse workforce in Canada through PaWC’s job board portal.

“Alstom strives to create a workplace where all employees feel respected, safe, and comfortable in expressing themselves authentically,” said Michael Keroullé, President Americas, and Executive Sponsor of Alstom True Colors, Alstom Americas’ more than 150-member employee resource group for LGBTQ+ employees and allies. “We are confident that joining Pride at Work Canada will help accelerate our progress toward our inclusion and allyship goals.”

Separately, Alstom recently landed an approximately C$123 million contract from British Columbia’s TransLink for an additional six five-car Mark V trainsets, which will run on the SkyTrain automated rapid transit system in metro Vancouver.

Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd. and Microsoft Corporation on June 3 reported entering a “projected multi-billion dollar,” three-year collaboration to help Hitachi, Ltd., grow its Lumada business and promote operational efficiency and productivity improvements for Hitachi Group’s 270,000 employees.

“Hitachi has been driving transformation by applying AI across the Hitachi Group to improve productivity and will invest 300 billion yen (2.1 billion USD) in GenAI to capture new growth opportunities in FY2024,” Hitachi President and CEO Kieji Kojima said. “Hitachi and Microsoft have already been working on a variety of co-creation projects including the development of next-generation digital solutions for the manufacturing and logistics fields, and the development of a field-extended metaverse that runs on Microsoft Teams. Under this new agreement, we are excited to further accelerate social innovation by expanding our efforts to social infrastructure areas such as energy and mobility, and by applying generative AI, to improve the productivity of frontline workers, which will become even more important in the future.”

“We are entering a new era of AI with the promise to deliver transformative business outcomes across every role and industry,” Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella said. “Our expanded partnership with Hitachi will bring together the power of the Microsoft Cloud—including Microsoft Copilot—with Hitachi’s industry expertise….”

According to Hitachi, its Generative AI Center and Microsoft will partner “to improve operational efficiency and application development within the Hitachi Group by using Copilot for Microsoft 365 and GitHub Copilot.” Hitachi said it will also use Azure OpenAI Service to improve its customer service. Additionally, Hitachi will “combine Azure OpenAI Service and GitHub Copilot with its systems development expertise to maintain high quality and improve productivity for … system development.”

Hitachi Rail is said to be leveraging GenAI for predictive maintenance. This “proactive approach,” parent company Hitachi explained, “prevents breakdowns, increases service quality, reduces operating expenses, and augments safety.” For example, it said, “a cloud-based platform on Microsoft Azure was utilized to streamline data visualization and analysis, empowered by AI to furnish data-driven insights to digitally monitor rail infrastructure” at Network Rail. Using these insights, Network Rail was able to better make decisions regarding catenary maintenance, Hitachi reported.

According to Hitachi, the company is also improving its Lumada solutions “by incorporating the capability of generative AI.” Hitachi said it has already started using Microsoft’s Generative AI for JP1 Cloud Services, a SaaS version of JP1, its integrated operations management software with approximately 20,000 customers. “This will accelerate response times to address failures, and enable improved operational efficiencies for IT departments, financial and public institutions,” Hitachi said.

Among other aspects of the collaboration, Hitachi said it will train more than 50,000 GenAI professionals.

Separately, Hitachi Rail on May 31 completed its $1.8 billion acquisition of Thales’ Ground Transportation Systems business, expanding its global presence to 51 countries with the majority of its revenues now coming from “higher return signaling and systems.”