SoftBank Acquires Sharp Factory in Osaka for AI Data Center with OpenAI
SoftBank has signed the acquisition of a former factory owned by Sharp, in Osaka, Japan, for $676 million. It intends to develop the former LCD panel manufacturing site into an artificial intelligence (AI) data center with OpenAI, according to a Nikkei report.
Data centers form a key enabler of fast-growing generative AI, providing the necessary infrastructure to train AI models and support AI-powered services.
Cooperation with OpenAI in Japan
While SoftBank has not confirmed whether the new facility will be used to launch OpenAI’s models in Japan, it is clear that the two companies are collaborating on this effort. Earlier, SoftBank and OpenAI announced their joint venture, SB OpenAI Japan, which aims to bring OpenAI’s advanced enterprise AI, “Cristal Intelligence,” to Japan. The new data center will support this initiative by housing the infrastructure necessary for AI model training using client data.
SoftBank and OpenAI Cement Their Collaboration
The development of the AI data center underscores increasing collaboration between SoftBank and OpenAI. This comes on top of earlier collaborative work on developing AI data centers in the United States, alongside Oracle and other companies. Moreover, SoftBank will be in talks to invest a maximum of $25 billion in OpenAI, although this investment has not yet taken effect.
Empowering the AI Future with Next-Generation Infrastructure
The Sakai plant, which SoftBank anticipates commencing operations for in 2026, will possess tremendous power capacity to support the expanding needs of AI processing. It will initially start with approximately 150 megawatts, and in the long term, expand capacity to over 240 megawatts. SoftBank plans to use the facility’s power capacity for large-scale AI model training and operations.
The Sakai facility will be SoftBank's third Japanese data center, following its current operations in Tokyo and a newly constructed one in Hokkaido.
