Obayashi Corporation and Hitachi Solutions, Ltd. established Oprizon, Ltd. ("Oprizon"), a joint venture providing smart building-related services, based on the Joint Venture Agreement executed on January 23, 2023. Aiming to become the leading smart building service provider, Oprizon started operation on April 1, 2023.

Recently, there has been a significant increase in demand for smart buildings that provide high value added services to building users and management companies using IoT technology such as sensors. However, the growing demand has created new challenges for the building owners to select the most appropriate services for the buildings, maintain equipment, and keep the software up to date. This has led to issues with the continuity of service usage and underutilizing the available functions during the operating phase.

The two companies have formed a global corporate partnership (ecosystem) in Silicon Valley, U.S., and have been among the first to incorporate state-of-the-art IT products and services across various areas, including construction. Leveraging this experience, two companies have established a service provider that can offer a comprehensive one-stop service, consolidating all necessary ingredients for a smart building, i.e., "construction," "equipment," "digital," and "systems." Oprizon will offer a range of cutting-edge services and, also provide services that enable the building owners to operate confidently over long term.

Oprizon will combine Obayashi's knowledge and skills to design and implement information systems for buildings as a general contractor and Hitachi Solutions' advanced expertise in system integration and experience as a service provider. Oprizon will provide various high-quality services to a wide range of users across multiple industries by leveraging its strength of quick decision-making and agility to become the driver of the smart building market, which has the potential for rapid growth.

In recent years, the demand for smart buildings that incorporate IoT technologies and building digitalization has increased with the aim to improve the convenience and comfort of the building owner, manager, and users and to increase the added value for the building.

In the next ten years, the number of buildings reaching 25 to 35 years from completion and requiring large-scale repair and maintenance will peak in Metropolitan Tokyo (leased area basis). Therefore, in addition to the new buildings, the demand for smart buildings is expected to increase for the renovation of existing buildings. As more buildings introduce services using cutting-edge technologies such as IoT and AI, building owners must make good use of such functions to improve the services for users, and the maintenance, operation, and security measures will become critical issues.

In addition to the construction of high-quality buildings, Obayashi has been developing and operating smart building services that are readily available for management companies and users. These included establishing the network environment for highly digitalized buildings, building applications, and providing services such as energy use visualization.

Hitachi Solutions has established an office in Silicon Valley for more than 15 years, adopting the latest IT services available in the U.S. and Europe and providing various solutions to the construction and real estate industries. One of its features is the use of ethical hackers for the total security solution that protects PCs, networks, and the cloud.

Oprizon will integrate the technologies and expertise of the two companies to co-create new values for realizing convenient and sustainable smart buildings.

Oprizon aims to offer services centering on shared services for smart buildings. Smart buildings require updating various services and monitoring network equipment and making these services available through a subscription-based cloud model will enable building owners and tenants to use them with reduced initial investment.

Oprizon will use an open architecture to incorporate services from Japanese and overseas vendors with cutting-edge IT to offer a broad range of convenient services for smart buildings. Initially targeting new construction and renovation of large and medium-sized office buildings, a wide range of proposals will be made for development and operation services. Moving forward, Oprizon will contribute to achieving carbon neutrality, which is a pressing social issue, contemplating expansion to buildings other than offices, such as factories, schools, hospitals, commercial facilities, and hotels, and further business development in smart cities.

In the future, Oprizon aims to capitalize on the strengths of our global ecosystem and expand our business to address various issues faced by customers. This includes providing new services that meet the digitalization of the construction process ("ConstructionTech") as part of our vision to offer a broad range of services from construction to building operation.

Oprizon will propose solutions to issues of the building owners centering on the following three services. By installing these services in advance, Oprizon will provide end-to-end support from the construction to the operation phase, enabling flexible and prompt responses to various requests from users regarding the building environment.