日本語 
Japan is making progress towards digitalization as Hitachi strengthens its cooperation with OpenAI to speed up the development of modernization of existing systems using artificial intelligence and enhance cybersecurity. In addressing the two major issues that challenge companies, namely, aging IT infrastructure and advanced cybersecurity threats, Hitachi’s cooperation with OpenAI seeks to ensure that companies are able to modernize their operations in an AI world.
The move by Hitachi could not have come at a more opportune time given the fact that several Japanese companies are operating on decades-old core systems that are important for day-to-day operations. These systems are aging and increasingly expensive to maintain as old experienced engineers leave and the relevant documentation ages. The result is that these systems become black boxes.
AI Takes on the Legacy System Challenge
The main element of this cooperation will be the employment of Codex, an artificial intelligence agent, to perform code analysis for source codes written in mission critical legacy systems. Codex will work with Hitachi and OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineers teams to build up an AI-based modernization framework. This framework will enable enhanced visibility into the architecture of the system, planning migration, and testing during modernization of the system. At first, this cooperation will target financial institutions but later on, there will be cooperation with other industries.
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Modernization of legacy systems became one of the key priorities for various companies across the world because many companies decided to migrate from traditional infrastructure to cloud-native and AI systems. Artificial intelligence analysis of code, automated documentation, and migration planning may help a lot to make the process of modernization less difficult and risky.
In Japan, where companies have been using customized IT infrastructure developed over several decades, AI-driven modernization will allow reaching significant productivity growth.
Cybersecurity Becomes a Strategic Focus
Alongside modernization, cybersecurity is another key pillar of the extended cooperation.
Hitachi aims to utilize OpenAI’s Trusted Access for Cyber (TAC) program, giving it access to AI models aimed at supporting cybersecurity experts. This program is part of the bigger strategy of OpenAI aimed at improving the cyber resilience of critical sectors through allowing trusted organizations to employ advanced AI technology in their defensive activities.
The Hitachi Cyber CoE will act as a “Customer Zero” environment that allows the company to test and validate its AI-enabled security functions internally and then use the experience in developing customer solutions. The potential use cases can range from vulnerability discovery and remediation to security validation and threat prioritization, all governed by people.
In the era of highly sophisticated cyberattacks and AI-enabled cyber threats, companies start to see the value of employing AI not as just a productivity tool but as a security force multiplier.
What This Means for Japan’s Technology Industry
There are several major implications of this partnership for the wider Japanese technology sector.
Many of the largest financial institutions, manufacturing companies, energy producers, logistics companies, and government organizations in Japan continue to maintain legacy systems to support business operations. Upgrading these systems usually requires considerable resources, time, and technical skills.
Using AI-driven systems to upgrade older systems can make the process significantly more efficient and create new opportunities for systems integration, software developers, cloud providers, consultants, and managed service providers. Companies that manage to update their IT infrastructure will also be able to adopt emerging technologies like generative AI, automation, predictive analytics, and digital twins.
Moreover, the partnership will allow Japan to reinforce its position as an advocate for enterprise adoption of AI technologies beyond chatbots and content generation.
Supporting the Evolution of Social Infrastructure
The collaboration’s importance is in its link to the HMAX and Lumada platforms of Hitachi, which are aimed at implementing AI in various industries such as transportation, energy, manufacturing, and infrastructure. The information that will be obtained during the collaboration with OpenAI will be incorporated in these platforms to facilitate the use of AI in mission-critical environments.
This is especially significant because governments and organizations are more inclined to modernize their infrastructure systems.
A New Chapter for Enterprise AI in Japan
Hitachi and OpenAI’s new partnership is not just about leveraging technological innovation; it reflects the increasing value of AI as a practical solution for dealing with enterprise problems which would traditionally take many years and much expertise to solve.
For Japanese companies, the partnership provides an opportunity to upgrade their aged systems, improve cyber security and drive forward their AI initiatives. On the other hand, the deal shows that the technology sector as a whole is increasingly interested in solutions for AI that generate tangible results, not just experiments.
Given that all over the world enterprises face the problems of upgrading their legacy infrastructures and increased cyber threats, the Japanese example can become a good template for how to utilize AI for these purposes responsibly.
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