NTT Data Group is nearing an agreement with Anthropic to build the AI company's first dedicated data centre in Japan, in Osaka, according to a Nikkei Asia report published Tuesday that cites multiple unnamed sources. Neither company has confirmed the talks. Both declined to comment when Nikkei asked, and Hitechreports has not independently verified the report.
The numbers involved are large even by data centre standards. Construction alone could run to about ¥1 trillion, or roughly $6.3 billion, Nikkei reported. Once the site is fitted out with the graphics processors that run Anthropic's Claude models, the total bill climbs to several trillion yen. The facility is described as capable of drawing up to 500 megawatts, which would put it among the largest data centres built in Japan.
That power draw is also the project's biggest obstacle. Pulling 500 megawatts straight from Japan's grid would take time to arrange, so the companies are reportedly looking at generating some of that electricity on site, including through fuel cells, rather than waiting on new grid capacity. Nothing about the power plan is locked in yet.
NTT Data and Anthropic are said to be aiming to sign a formal agreement by the end of March 2027, the close of Japan's fiscal year, with part of the Osaka site opening as early as 2028. That is a tight runway for a project of this scale, and the timeline Nikkei describes leaves room for either side to walk away before ink hits paper.
NTT Data, part of the telecoms group NTT, is already the world's third-largest data centre operator by market share, running more than 1,600 megawatts of capacity across several countries. An Osaka site built specifically for Anthropic would be a new kind of commitment for the firm, tying a large chunk of future capacity to a single AI lab rather than spreading it across cloud customers.
Anthropic already has business ties in Japan. Hitachi agreed in May to roll out Claude across its roughly 290,000 employees, one of the larger corporate AI deployments announced in the country this year. Nikkei also reports that Anthropic is scouting data centre sites elsewhere in Asia, including in Australia, where the Australian Financial Review has separately reported talks with local firms.
The Osaka project would slot into a much bigger Japanese government push. Tokyo has said it wants ¥32.7 trillion in public and private spending on data centres, cloud infrastructure and battery storage by 2035, and Nikkei reports other large sites are already planned in Akita and Kagoshima. Japan is competing with other Asian governments to land exactly this kind of investment, and an Anthropic-NTT Data deal, if it closes, would be one of the clearest signs yet that the AI infrastructure race has fully arrived in the country.
For now it remains a report, not a signed contract. The companies have until March 2027 to decide whether the numbers, and the power, actually work.
TBFiled by The Tech Business Desk
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