Hitachi Rail has outlined its approach to scalable industrial autonomy for railways at the NVIDIA GTC event.
Speaking on a panel chaired by Deepu Talla, NVIDIA’s Vice President of Robotics and AI, Hitachi Rail’s Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, Mariella Guerricchio, discussed how AI and digital technologies are being applied to manage and optimise railway systems.
The panel, entitled The Future of Industrial Autonomy, examined how advanced AI and edge computing are reshaping rail operations and how these technologies can be deployed safely and at scale.
Guerricchio highlighted the challenges of introducing AI into rail networks, many of which are 50 to 100 years old. Digital retrofitting and system interoperability can be complex, and any AI deployment in safety-critical operations must meet strict regulatory standards.
To address these issues, Hitachi Rail is using its Digital & AI Center of Excellence to improve edge processing capacity and reliability. The company’s HMAX for Rail platform integrates data from trains, signalling systems, infrastructure, and proprietary sensors. Using digital twins and high-performance computing technologies, including NVIDIA IGX Thor, HMAX enables automated train operations, energy management, and predictive maintenance.
Guerricchio said:Our powerful digital solutions are enabling us to learn from both real-world and synthetic data, speeding up development time, while retaining and enhancing the reliability and quality of railway systems. We are ready to meet the changing requirements of the mobility market with solutions that can balance the need for AI-powered digital technologies and regulatory compliance, in order to increase service capacity and optimise the entire railway system.
