Hitachi is investing heavily in America’s overstretched electric grid. The company’s energy unit said it will pour $1 billion into expanding U.S. manufacturing for grid equipment, led by a new factory in Virginia that will produce the power transformers required to support the energy needs of data centers and other industrial uses. The move comes as utilities prepare for an AI-fueled jump in demand and as policy makers push to accelerate energy infrastructure buildout.
Nearly half the spend, about $457 million, goes to the Virginia plant, which Hitachi says will become the largest U.S. producer of utility-scale transformers. Construction is slated to start this year, with operations expected by 2028. The facility will sit alongside the company’s existing campus and create more than 800 jobs, according to the company. Hitachi will also expand breaker and switchgear operations near Pittsburgh, strengthening its domestic footprint for high-voltage gear.
Data Centers: Massive Shortages Looming
The industrial logic is clear: AI data centers are electricity sponges, and the grid’s weak links are increasingly the transformers and high-voltage components that step voltage up and down across long distances. U.S. data centers are projected to roughly triple power consumption within a few years, potentially reaching about 12% of national load, and leading analysts see as much as 125 gigawatts of new demand burdening the system this decade.
The American Society of Civil Engineers graded U.S. energy infrastructure with a dismal D+ and estimated the country is close to a staggering $1 trillion short of required upgrades. In that context, building out domestic transformer capacity is no longer optional.
Hitachi Energy CEO Andreas Schierenbeck has called large transformers “linchpin” technology for a reliable grid and argued that U.S. production is critical to ease bottlenecks and de-risk projects. The new Virginia plant is intended to chip away at that backlog with domestic manufacturing and shorter logistics paths.
National Support
Hitachi says it has commitments from the White House to expedite new U.S. manufacturing capacity for power components, and it noted close coordination with federal and Virginia leaders. The administration’s broader AI and energy posture emphasizes speeding permits and prioritizes predictable energy generation sources, including natural gas and nuclear, to keep pace with the growing load from AI.
That approach has drawn fierce criticism from environmental groups for sidelining wind and solar incentives, but it reflects Washington’s urgency about grid adequacy as Big Tech races to add compute.
Virginia, of course, is an obvious choice for Hitachi’s efforts. Northern Virginia is the country’s (and the world’s) densest data-center cluster, and statewide capacity additions have been constant. Local leaders say Hitachi’s project is both a source of jobs engine and a key asset for energy security.
The Larger Plan
Hitachi’s U.S. investment supports its larger corporate strategy. The company has outlined more than $9 billion in global investment to expand energy and manufacturing capacity, with the U.S. framed as a key market. Executives claim that the blend of IT, operational technology and grid hardware positions Hitachi to supply not just utilities but also the hyperscalers and colocation providers building AI campuses.
If Hitachi can bring substantial domestic transformer output online by 2028 and scale expansions, it will have timed its investment to an inflection point: a U.S. grid that needs far more hardware, far faster, to support the current massive data center buildout.
