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Hitachi Vantara Enhances Hitachi iQ Portfolio

Hitachi Vantara LLC, a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd., has recently announced an upgrade to its "Hitachi iQ" portfolio, aimed at assisting businesses in adopting responsible AI solutions effectively. This expansion includes enhanced AI blueprints within "Hitachi iQ Studio," improvements to multi-agent collaboration capabilities, expanded NVIDIA AI infrastructure options, and advanced data integration for agent-based AI operating in on-premises and virtual environments. This comprehensive solution enables customers to develop and manage AI agents tailored specifically for their operational environments.

As organizations transition from experimental AI implementations to full operational deployment, they face challenges including data complexity, ensuring AI sovereignty, and addressing advanced governance and security requirements. A recent study indicated that only 42% of companies in the U.S. and Canada are recognized for their high data maturity, with just 84% of those realizing a return on investment (ROI) from their AI endeavors. Conversely, 48% of companies report that their data infrastructure is still inadequately developed. As businesses increasingly shift to practical AI applications, a robust data operation alongside securely managed infrastructure becomes a critical differentiator in the marketplace.

The Hitachi iQ portfolio combines AI-optimized infrastructure with integrated agent capabilities, alongside monitoring and compliance features necessary for responsible corporate AI deployment. Hitachi's Executive Vice President Jun Abe stated, "Hitachi Vantara has successfully fused reliable engineering honed over years with an agile business approach on a global scale to spearhead IT infrastructure in the age of AI. The expanded Hitachi iQ portfolio serves as the foundation for customers to safely leverage responsible AI in their environments, effectively embodying that leadership. This allows customers to automate complex processes while maintaining AI governance and accelerating their AI transformation."

Moreover, Octavian Tanase, Chief Product Officer of Hitachi Vantara, emphasized, "The rapid transition to AI in operational settings has outpaced the necessary data infrastructure improvements for many companies. The enhancements to the Hitachi iQ portfolio encompass software innovations, high-performance infrastructure, intelligent data integration, thereby providing customers greater flexibility and operational excellence as they move their agent-based AIs from trial to production phases."

Accelerated Computing Options for Latest AI Workloads

Hitachi iQ supports businesses in implementing and operating reliable AI infrastructure with solid performance. Built on the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform One (VSP One), a hybrid cloud data platform, Hitachi iQ is also utilized within Hitachi's broader next-generation solution set, "HMAX by Hitachi." Currently, Hitachi iQ supports a 2U NVIDIA MGX-based system featuring up to four NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs, including air-cooled, NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs (both air-cooled and liquid-cooled), and the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs. Additionally, support is planned for the newly announced NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs. These GPU options allow customers to choose more suitable computational resources relative to their AI workloads, addressing constraints related to cooling, power, and space while meeting security, resilience, and operational requirements for enterprise applications.

Hitachi iQ is delivered as a validated configuration integrating accelerated computing, networking, and storage, significantly enhancing the utilization and processing efficiency of data-intensive AI workloads by situating the data close to the computational resources.

New AI Blueprints and Data Orchestration in Hitachi iQ Studio

Hitachi iQ Studio empowers organizations to design, deploy, and manage AI agents securely within their corporate environments. Built on the NVIDIA AI Data Platform reference design, the expanded AI blueprints and improved multi-agent collaboration features facilitate the transition of AI from prototyping to production with enhanced visibility and operational efficacy. The new AI blueprints include pre-defined agent roles such as supervisor and worker models. Worker agents execute tasks, while supervisor agents coordinate workflows among multiple AI agents based on execution results, allowing organizations to maintain visibility, efficiency, and governance while automating complex processes.

Moreover, Hitachi iQ Studio has expanded support for NVIDIA Nemotron, a large language model designed for agent-based AI systems. The addition of a time-machine functionality enables AI systems to process sets of historical data along contextual and temporal lines, enhancing explainability and fostering decision-making across industries relying on long-term data patterns.

Jason Hardy, NVIDIA’s VP of Storage Technologies, remarked, "To continue the large-scale deployment of AI, enterprises must combine accelerated computing with consistent software and reliable data access. Optimizing full-stack AI infrastructure for businesses maintains requisite performance, governance, and operational consistency while enabling broader AI outcomes across various sectors."

Strengthened Integration with Hammerspace for Streamlined Data Access

Hitachi iQ has enhanced its collaboration with Hammerspace, streamlining data access based on their strategic partnership and improving workflow efficiencies for AI agents executing tasks. Utilizing the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard allowing AI systems to safely connect to external data sources, Hitachi iQ Studio now enables direct access to data managed by Hammerspace.

This enhancement allows clients to securely leverage data managed by Hammerspace while developing AI agents on Hitachi iQ Studio, promoting automation and utilization of processing without unnecessary data movement across various sites. Regardless of the operating environment of the AI agents, data remains managed and protected within VSP One, maintaining availability and consistent processing performance. Additionally, the enhanced integration improves data visibility and facilitates access to distributed data without complicated infrastructure changes, allowing AI agents to utilize necessary data without unnecessary relocations. Consequently, this reinforces collaboration between data orchestration and AI agent management, supporting VSP One Block in maintaining stable performance and high data availability while providing flexibility in a hybrid cloud setting.

Accelerating Storage Solutions for AI

Hitachi Vantara is currently considering support for the newly announced NVIDIA STX reference architecture, which aims to develop AI-native storage solutions, leveraging NVIDIA Vera Rubin, BlueField-4, Spectrum-X networking, and NVIDIA AI software.

Hitachi Vantara will showcase Hitachi iQ and Hitachi iQ Studio at the NVIDIA GTC 2026 event, set to be held from March 16-19, 2026, in San Jose, California. Attendees can witness how these products facilitate easier and faster development of agent-based AI across various industries. For more details on One Hitachi's showcase at GTC 2026, please visit this link.

For further information on Hitachi iQ Studio, visit here.