Key points
▶ On October 13, the Nikkei reported that NTT DATA Group was in the final stages of negotiations to build a data center dedicated to U.S. AI company Anthropic in a coastal area in southern Osaka Prefecture.
▶ Construction costs could reach as much as 1 trillion yen (about 9 trillion won). Reuters reported that the facility could have a total power intake capacity of up to 500 MW, with some operations starting in 2028.
▶ The companies aim to sign a contract by the end of fiscal 2026, in March 2027. The reports are based on sources, and the contract terms have not been finalized.
NTT DATA Group is in the final stages of negotiations to build a data center in Osaka dedicated to U.S. AI company Anthropic, the Nikkei reported on October 13.
Construction costs could reach as much as 1 trillion yen (about 9 trillion won). Reuters reported the same day that the facility could have a total power intake capacity of up to 500 MW, with some operations beginning as early as 2028. If the plan goes ahead, it would be Anthropic’s first dedicated data center in Japan.
The site is in a coastal area in southern Osaka Prefecture. The companies aim to sign a contract by the end of fiscal 2026, in March 2027. However, the reports are based on sources, and neither the construction plan nor the contract terms have been finalized.
◆ 500 MW refers to the entire facility
The 500 MW figure refers to the facility’s total power intake capacity—the total electricity it can draw from the utility. This includes power used not only by servers but also by cooling and building systems.
The facilities that NTT DATA Group operates or is building in the Kansai region use a different measure. Its North Osaka Data Center in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture, is scheduled to open one building in the second half of fiscal 2027, with a capacity of 18 MW. When a second building is completed in 2032, the total capacity will be 36 MW.
NTT DATA Group’s Keihanna OSK11 facility in Kyoto Prefecture opened on April 9 and has a capacity of 30 MW. These figures refer to IT power capacity supplied to equipment such as servers. The 1 trillion yen figure is also an estimate reported at this stage, not a confirmed contract amount.
The North Osaka center is designed to accommodate high-heat servers with multiple GPUs and high-density racks. It supports direct liquid cooling, in which coolant comes into direct contact with heat-generating components. The plan also includes connecting it to other group data centers through NTT’s next-generation optical network, IOWN APN. It has not been decided whether the Anthropic facility will have the same equipment.
NTT DATA Group sees Osaka as both a backup site in case of a disaster affecting the Tokyo region and a regional hub for cloud and AI demand in western Japan.
◆ Processing location and storage location are different
In June, Anthropic outlined its policies on where data for its enterprise services, including Claude Enterprise and its API, is processed and stored.
Unless customers specify otherwise, requests may be routed to facilities in the United States, Europe, Asia or Australia. The company stated that data is stored in the United States.
Anthropic also said that internal work, such as safety reviews, product support and incident response, may be handled in countries where Anthropic or its affiliates operate.
It has not been disclosed whether the Osaka center will be used for model training or inference, or which Claude services it will support.