Hitachi plans to triple its overseas forward deployed engineers to 3,000 within a year
Anand Birje, who will lead the new Hitachi Digital, told reporters in Tokyo on Oct 29 that Hitachi will grow its overseas FDE workforce from about 1,000 to 3,000 over the next year, mainly by training existing staff, to meet rising demand for AI implementation.
Two days after announcing Hitachi Digital, the company that will combine GlobalLogic and Hitachi Digital Services from April 2027, Hitachi put a number on its FDE plans. Anand Birje, who heads Hitachi's overseas IT services and will become CEO and chairman of Hitachi Digital, said at a press briefing in Tokyo on October 29 that Hitachi will expand its forward deployed engineers outside Japan from about 1,000 today to 3,000 within a year.
According to Nikkei and Jiji Press, the increase will come largely from developing in-house talent rather than outside hiring, and is meant to keep up with growing customer demand for engineers who work alongside clients to put AI into production.
For FDEs, this is one of the largest single headcount targets announced so far, and it comes from an industrial and IT services group rather than an AI lab. It also signals that much of the growth may be filled by reskilling existing GlobalLogic and Hitachi engineers, so internal transfers and training programs could matter as much as external openings at these companies.
Source: www.nikkei.com