Japan’s Biggest Data Center Hub to Rise in Toyama Prefecture

A city in western Japan plans to launch the country’s third—and largest—data center cluster, with total power capacity of 3.1 gigawatts, according to a document, as the Asian nation races to meet surging demand for artificial intelligence–related services. Chang Ran-Kim reported for Reuters.

Once completed, the GigaStream Toyama project will rank among the world’s largest data center hubs. (Photo: GigaStream Toyama) 

Nanto City in Toyama Prefecture, near the Sea of Japan, is expected to announce the plan with private developer GigaStream Toyama, according to the document obtained by Reuters.

Once completed, the project will rank among the world’s largest data center hubs, comparable to OpenAI’s $500 billion, 10-gigawatt Stargate project.

Demand for data centers is soaring, but establishing a disaster-resilient third hub—beyond the population centers of Tokyo and Osaka—has proven difficult.

Those two regions account for about 85 percent of Japan’s data centers, and the government has said regional diversification is crucial to easing bottlenecks.

Nanto is about 250 kilometers (155 miles) from both Tokyo and Osaka and is considered a low-hazard risk area. Toyama is among the prefectures with the fewest large earthquakes, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

The first phase of the Nanto campus will support about 400 megawatts of power capacity—equivalent to some of Japan’s largest data centers announced to date—and will be capable of serving hyperscale operators such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet’s Google.

The site is expected to be ready for service by the end of 2028.