Anthropic to Build First Data Center in Japan

Anthropic is in the final stages of talks with NTT Data Group to build its first data center in Japan, Nikkei reported. The facility is expected to have a total power intake capacity of up to 500 megawatts, which would make it one of Japan’s largest data centers.

Construction costs for the project, which is set to be based in western Japan’s Osaka prefecture, could potentially reach 1 trillion yen ($6.3 billion). Anthropic and NTT Data, a subsidiary of Japanese telecommunications group NTT, are aiming to sign a deal by the end of 2026. Partial operations could start as early as 2028, Nikkei reported.

Anthropic has been on a sprint to increase its data center capacity to support model development and the deployment of its products. The company has struck $531 billion worth of compute deals in just the last 11 months, largely with cloud providers such as AWS, Google and Microsoft, The Information reported. It is in early talks to lease up to 1 gigawatt in capacity from a data center developer majority-owned by Apollo Global Management.