Technology Strategy

Achieving Sustainable Growth Through Technology

The IHI Group operates businesses that support industrial infrastructure and national security across three domains: energy, aerospace, and infrastructure. These sectors demand exceptionally high levels of reliability and safety, making the Group’s decades of accumulated technological expertise, proven track record, and capabilities in certification and regulatory compliance key competitive strengths.

Within this business structure, the IHI Group has grown its businesses by leveraging its technological strengths. As the Group pursues technology development looking ahead to 2040, it will continue to respond to changes in society and the industrial landscape and advance technologies that create new value, drive sustainable growth, and lead to its next stage of development.
The driving force behind this technology-led growth lies in the Group’s “fundamental technologies”*¹ in areas such as combustion, thermal and fluid engineering, materials, and structures, as well as its “product-specific technologies”*² in areas such as design, manufacturing, and construction. By combining these technologies, the Group has achieved new levels of performance and functionality. Underpinning this is the broad base of technological expertise the Group has built up over more than 170 years of business operations.

• *1　
  Technologies that can be applied across multiple products and businesses.
• *2　
  Technologies closely tied to specific products or businesses, such as bridge design and construction technologies and aircraft engine component design and manufacturing technologies.

Strong technologies can be broadly classified into two categories. The first is “technology for creating what has never existed before”: technology that creates new value by enabling levels of performance and functionality that were previously unattainable. The second is “technology for creating things in ways that have never been done before”: technology that transforms approaches to design, production, construction, and other processes, increasing productivity and profitability while maintaining high standards of quality and safety.

A representative example of “technology for creating what has never existed before” is ammonia combustion technology. Achieving stable ammonia combustion requires sophisticated combustion control, and developing this capability demands extensive testing and validation over many years. The expertise and data accumulated through this process cannot be replicated in a short period of time, making them significant key strengths that support the advancement and commercialization of the technology.

Meanwhile, a prime example of “technology for creating things in ways that have never been done before” is the Group’s manufacturing technology for small modular reactors (SMRs). Expanding production capacity requires a shift from one-off manufacturing to repeat production. This calls not only for welding technologies capable of handling new materials, complex geometries, and difficult-to-weld areas, but also for automation technologies covering processes such as machining and inspection, as well as the establishment of design, production, and quality management processes that incorporate all of these technologies. By doing so, the Group aims to expand production capacity while maintaining high quality, ultimately improving profitability.

Technology Management That Drives Business Growth

The IHI Group possesses a diverse range of technologies and expertise developed across its businesses. By taking a Group-wide perspective and combining technologies and expertise from different fields, the Group can develop technologies that lead to the creation of new business opportunities. To pursue a major leap forward and achieve sustainable growth with limited management resources, the Group needs to bring together the diverse technologies and expertise developed across its businesses. This means taking an integrated approach to technology development, quality and design, and production, and translating technologies that will contribute to future growth into viable businesses. Based on this approach, the Group established the Corporate Technology Strategy Office as a dedicated organization responsible for setting the direction of technology development across the Group.

The Corporate Technology Strategy Office works closely with the business divisions and technology development divisions to develop and acquire strong technological capabilities that will drive future business growth. The Office is also building a foundation for technology development by establishing a digital environment that leverages knowledge and data, including the protection of intellectual property and technical information and the use of AI.

In 2026, the Group formalized this approach as a fundamental policy for R&D investment. In addition, to support these efforts, the Group is developing talent with an understanding of both technology and business who can make decisions from the perspective of business growth.

Looking toward 2040, the IHI Group will continue to refine its technological strengths while strengthening its technology management capabilities to translate those strengths into business opportunities. Through these efforts, the Group aims to achieve sustainable, technology-driven growth and contribute to solving the challenges facing society and industry.