Hitachi’s Integrated Vision Around Big Data
by Hu Yoshida on Jun 8, 2012
Extending my series on big data dimensions around volume, velocity, variety and value as defined by IDC and Gartner, this post is about value. How do we get value out of big data. In a previous post I referenced a small project in which the value of data is being realized through improvements in nutritional services to mothers and young children in remote villages in Africa with the use of smart phones.
In a recent interview with Peter Gothard of Computing.co.uk, our CEO Jack Domme stated that the value of big data comes in the ability to enable end users to more widely interpret that data and put it to practical use themselves. He is quoted in a recent interview as saying: “Data types are very sophisticated – we’re talking about a brain scan, or MRI, for example. Anybody can analyse it [to a point], but you’re going to see companies with sophisticated analytics. You’re going to say ‘Somebody could write it, but it’s going to take a lot of knowledge, a lot of competency to compare your blood test or your MRI from 10 years ago, to today,’” he said.
“This is how things are going to change in terms of governance. Making data objects real for current applications. And who’s going to write the application to analyze all this stuff? We believe that’s going to come from very specific industries.”
Jack’s belief is that it’s in Hitachi’s 900 subsidiary companies where the key lies to HDS future in a big data world. For instance, Hitachi has a medical division that builds MRIs that takes the imaging scan and does the analysis of the MRI. Who is better qualified to analyze it than the people who have spent years developing this technology? The same goes for transportation systems where Hitachi has developed bullet trains in Japan and hybrid train systems for the London Olympics. It also extends to energy systems where Hitachi builds hybrid engines for automobiles as well as nuclear reactors for the generation of electrical energy. Another division of Hitachi builds special cameras with facial recognition software that is used for the detection and tracking of specific individuals and also for feedback from facial reactions to stimuli such as adverts. Who better to analyze this type of data than the company that created these technologies and the science around it?
Hitachi is a unique company with technical capabilities in many areas. And under the leadership of Hitachi CEO Hiroaki Nakanishi, Hitachi is globalizing all the technologies that we have.
Jack is further quoted in this interview: “I’m so excited because under Mr. Nakanishi, Hitachi is going to market as a unified company, not just in segments. We are finding a vision that is really bringing the power of all of our groups to bear, and big data is a focal point.”
