NTT Data Reportedly Nears Deal to Build Anthropic’s First Japan Data Centre
The Osaka facility could cost up to ¥1tn ($6.3bn) to build and draw up to 500 megawatts, Nikkei Asia reports.
October 13, 2026 - 8:12 am
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According to Nikkei Asia, NTT Data Group is close to agreeing to a deal with Anthropic for a new data centre in Osaka, the first site in Japan built just for Anthropic, which makes the Claude AI models. TNW has not independently confirmed the report, and both NTT Data and Anthropic declined to comment to Nikkei.
Construction alone could cost up to ¥1 trillion ($6.3 billion), with the total bill potentially reaching several trillion yen due to the addition of AI servers with graphics processors.
The site would draw up to 500 megawatts of power, making it one of the largest data centres in Japan. The two companies aim to sign a deal by the end of March 2027, with part of the site opening as early as 2028.
Power is the main hurdle. The project will initially explore options such as on-site power generation and fuel cells, Nikkei reported, as drawing 500 megawatts from the grid would be slow.
NTT Data, part of the NTT telecoms group, ranks third among world’s data centre operators by market share, running more than 1,600 megawatts of capacity in several countries.
Anthropic already has a presence in Japan; in May, Hitachi agreed to roll out Claude across its workforce of about 290,000 people.
The company is also considering new data centres in other Asian countries, where governments are actively competing to host them, according to Nikkei. In Australia, the Australian Financial Review has reported that Anthropic is in talks with local firms.
Japan is also investing heavily in data centres as part of a wider data centre push. The government aims to invest ¥32.7 trillion in data centres, cloud computing, and battery storage by 2035. Other major data centre projects are planned in Akita and Kagoshima, Nikkei reported.