SoftBank is to develop a 150MW data center at a soon-to-be-closed liquid crystal display (LCD) panel-making site in Osaka, Japan.
First reported by Nikkei Asia and later confirmed by the company, SoftBank Corp. has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Sharp Corporation regarding the construction of a data center utilizing land and buildings at Sharp’s LCD panel plant located in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture.
Set on 440,000 square meters (4.7 million sq ft), SoftBank plans to construct a 750,000 sqm (8 million sq ft) data center with a power capacity of more than 150MW. Construction is set to begin in Fall 2024 for a 2025 launch date, the company said the site could reach more than 400MW in the future.
SoftBank said it has been in discussions with Sharp since January. The project would account for about 60 percent of the plant’s total land area.
Reports surfaced last year that SoftBank was planning to invest up to $400m in developing "one of Japan’s largest data centers."
“SoftBank is aiming to rapidly construct the data center by inheriting the land, buildings, electric power supply facilities, cooling systems, and other resources of the Sharp Sakai Plant,” the company said.
“SoftBank plans to utilize this data center for its own generative AI development and other AI-related business. SoftBank also plans to widely provide the data center to universities, research institutions, businesses, and others to meet the various AI-related usage needs of external parties.”
The company said it will also consider collaborating with Sharp in AI-related businesses going forward.
Located in the Sakai area of Osaka, construction began on the 1.27 million sqm (13.6 million sq ft) LCD plant in November 2007. The site was launched in 2009 by Sharp, with rumors that the Sakai plant might close first surfacing in March of this year as the company faced growing losses and price competition for LCD panels.
Reports that Foxconn, Sharp’s parent company, was planning to turn the site into a data center campus came to light last month.
The SoftBank facility is set to be one of at least two data centers developed on the site.
Telehouse-parent KDDI has also signed an agreement with Sharp to develop a data center at the Sharp factory. Details are scarce, but the site is set to host ‘at least 1,000 servers,’ many comprising Nvidia GB200 NVL72s.
Previous reports suggest Sharp will power off the TV panel plant by September, after it failed to secure buyers and partners for what was once the world’s biggest liquid crystal display factory. Sharp had been seeking companies willing to use the space to make semiconductors.
SoftBank currently operates 13 data centers across Japan; four in Tokyo, three each around Osaka and Kitakyushu, and one each in Oita, Fukushima, and Sapporo.
As well as offering colocation and hosting services directly, SoftBank also offers services through its IDC Frontier subsidiary, which operates a number of facilities in the country. Its facilities include the 50MW Tokyo Fuchu Data Center, which can support about 4,000 server racks.
The telco also owns the Internet exchange BBIX and dark fiber company BB Backbone.
