Nanto city in Toyama prefecture in western Japan plans to launch the country’s third and largest data center cluster with a total power capacity of 3.1 gigawatts.
The city, near the Sea of Japan, announced the plan with private developer GigaStream Toyama called “Nanto Campus” on Friday.
The Nanto City Council approved the sale of land for Phase 1 (about 13.1 hectares) to GigaStream Toyama. Phase 1 can absorb around 400 MW of power and will realize, through a public–private partnership, a third domestic data center cluster to address the severe shortage of data center capacity in Japan, said the joint press release.
To date, more than 10 companies within the city and prefecture have already contributed to this project.
The Asian country is making efforts to meet surging demand for AI-related services. Demand for data centers is rising, but setting up a disaster-resilient third Japanese center to follow those in the population hubs of Tokyo and Osaka has proven difficult. The two regions account for around 85% of Japan’s data centers, and the government has said regional diversification is important to ease the bottlenecks there. Nanto is about 250 km (155 miles) from both Tokyo and Osaka and is considered a low-hazard risk area.
GigaStream Toyama, which focuses on preparing infrastructure for data center operators, intends to start promoting the Nanto Campus at the Pacific Telecommunications Council conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, in January 2026.
Once completed, the project will be among the biggest data-center hubs in the world, such as OpenAI’s (OPENAI) $500B, 10-GW Stargate project, Reuters reported.
The first phase of the Nanto hub would support about 400 MW of power capacity, equal to some of Japan’s largest data centers announced so far and capable of servicing hyperscale operators such as Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet’s (GOOGL) (GOOGL) Google, the report added.
The facility will be ready for service by the end of 2028, the report noted, citing the public-private plan.
Japan’s data-center market is expected to almost double to more than 5T yen (about $32B) in the five years to 2028, driven by demand for cloud and AI services, as per research firm IDC Japan, the report noted.
Unlike in eastern Japan, power is more abundant and generally cheaper in the western region, which is serviced by companies like Hokuriku Electric Power (HOKRF), Kansai Electric Power (KAEPF), Electric Power Development (J-Power) (EPWDF) (EDRWY) and other smaller operators, the report added.