Hitachi launches TWX-21 procurement AI, cutting work time up to 65%

Hitachi is not selling the service as a standalone tool but as a feature of TWX-21, the company's business-to-business trading cloud, which it says is used by about 8万7000 companies. That means the new offering reaches an existing pool of buyers rather than requiring Hitachi to build a new customer base from scratch.

The claim behind the launch is an internal one: Hitachi says applying the service inside its own operations cut delivery-management work time by up to 65%. It also says it codified know-how from its own procurement work, such as controlling negotiation priority and frequency by trading partner, and identifying which metrics, analysis axes and improvement actions to focus on in delivery management. Those are the kinds of judgment calls that are otherwise hard to hand to software.

Hitachi has drawn a clear line on authority: the AI agents do the work, but a human procurement manager makes the final decision. Looking further out, Hitachi says it plans to sell a procurement AI for SCM operations during fiscal 2026 that would predict how natural disasters and geopolitical risks affect the business and estimate potential losses.