Hitachi Energy is preparing a fresh round of capital investment across South America, with plans to expand its manufacturing presence throughout the Southern Cone, including Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. The move reflects mounting global demand for infrastructure that supports the energy transition, the growth of electric mobility, industrial decarbonisation and the expansion of green hydrogen production.

The company's most immediate commitments are already visible in Brazil and Colombia, where factory expansions are under way. The Guarulhos plant in Brazil is due to complete its expansion by the middle of this year, with an official opening scheduled for the autumn. Alongside this, Hitachi Energy is developing a new facility in Pindamonhangaba, a project that illustrates the scale of demand the company is now managing. The plant's entire first year of production has already been sold out ahead of its planned launch in late 2027, prompting Hitachi Energy to revise its capacity expansion plans for the site from 100 per cent to 120 per cent. Pindamonhangaba was selected in part for its access to skilled labour and its proximity to major export ports, factors that support both domestic supply and the site's role in international trade.

Demand from the data centre sector has also shaped the company's approach in Brazil, though not without complication. Gigawatt-scale artificial intelligence data centres, of the kind now common in North America, face constraints in Brazil because the existing grid capacity and regulatory framework cannot yet accommodate them. In response, developers have shifted towards mid-sized data centres of between 100MW and 200MW, which can connect directly into existing distribution networks without requiring the scale of new transmission infrastructure that larger facilities would demand. Hitachi Energy's recent agreement to supply electrical infrastructure for a North American technology company's data centre in Minas Gerais reflects this adjusted strategy and points to a growing pipeline of similar projects.

The company's South American operations are increasingly serving markets well beyond the region. Transformers and extra-high voltage direct current systems manufactured at its Brazilian and Colombian sites are being exported in significant volumes to the United States, where demand is driven largely by data centre construction, as well as to Europe and the Middle East. This export activity has turned what might once have been considered peripheral manufacturing hubs into a meaningful part of the global supply chain for grid infrastructure, at a time when demand for transformers and HVDC equipment is outstripping supply in several major markets.

The investment case for the region is strengthened by its energy profile. The Southern Cone generates more than 80 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources, yet consumes only a fraction of the capacity available to it. This combination of clean generation and underused capacity presents an opportunity for further industrial growth, provided the grid can be modernised to support it. Brazil's transmission and distribution networks, while already interconnected on a national scale, require substantial upgrading to match the pace of development seen in the United States and Europe. The Brazilian government's ten-year plan to 2035 sets out requirements for exactly this kind of upgrade, calling for improvements to transmission and distribution infrastructure capable of handling distributed generation and increased digitalisation.

Hitachi Energy's expansion plans align closely with these government targets, positioning the company to benefit from both domestic infrastructure spending and continued export demand. With production capacity already stretched at facilities such as Pindamonhangaba, the company's next phase of investment across the wider Southern Cone will be closely watched as an indicator of how quickly South America's energy infrastructure can scale to meet both regional and global needs.

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