Anthropic is working with Japanese telecommunications group NTT on plans to build a data center of up to 500 megawatts in the Osaka area, according to a foreign media report.
Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on the 13th, citing multiple people familiar with the matter, that NTT Data Group, an NTT subsidiary, and Anthropic are discussing the construction of a new data center on the southern coast of Osaka. The two sides aim to sign a contract within the current fiscal year, which runs from April 2026 through March 2027, with the facility expected to begin operating as early as 2028.
It would mark Anthropic's second overseas data center project after Australia. Reuters reported last month that Anthropic had signed its first data center lease in Brisbane, Australia. Anthropic is said to be considering new data centers in several Asian countries.
NTT Data Group, Anthropic's partner in the project, is the world's third-largest data center operator by market share. It runs facilities with combined capacity of more than 1,600 megawatts in the United States, Europe and Asia. Nikkei said the company intends to build on its experience developing large-scale facilities in Japan to win additional orders in the future.
Construction costs could reach 1 trillion yen, or about 8.49 trillion won, and the total power capacity of 500 megawatts would make it one of the largest data centers in Japan. Bringing in large volumes of high-performance graphics processing unit servers, which are essential for AI data processing, could push total investment in the facility several times higher. NTT Data Group and Anthropic did not respond to inquiries, Nikkei said.
The Japanese government, which is pursuing a campaign to build a stronger Japan, has designated data centers and cloud computing as key products and technologies among its 17 growth strategies. It aims to invest 32.7 trillion yen in cloud computing, data centers and batteries by 2035. Analysts say that securing an Anthropic data center would further advance Japan's AI infrastructure.