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KDDI CORPORATION
Tokyo, January 22, 2026―KDDI will commence operations at the Osaka Sakai Data Center on January 22. This AI data center boasts excellent access, owing to its location in the vicinity of urban Osaka―a hub for industry and commerce. By providing GPUs and on-premises services for Google’s high-performance generative AI model Gemini, KDDI aims to realize widespread AI implementation within the pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries, as well as many other fields. [
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This AI data center reuses the high-capacity power and cooling facilities from the site of the Sharp Sakai Plant that KDDI acquired in April 2025. KDDI is also utilizing the water-cooling technologies developed at KDDI Telehouse Shibuya Data Center, as well as the insight into building data centers it has cultivated through over 30 years of experience. As a result, KDDI was able to build the Osaka Sakai Data Center in just half a year and achieve a rapid launch with AI servers featuring systems, such as the NVIDIA GB200 NVL72, that feature powerful computational performance, practical approaches to data sovereignty and high-bandwidth, high-quality connectivity.
Going forward, KDDI will utilize this AI data center for initiatives to tackle issues in the pharmaceutical industry, while also providing assistance to the manufacturing industry and other fields in refining data analysis and developing a Japanese-made LLM.
KDDI will drive efforts to enhance digital infrastructure in a way that integrates networks with AI, including this AI data center. The company will work with a wide range of partner companies to accelerate the widespread implementation of AI, thereby helping Japan enhance its competitive edge in the industry.
The Osaka Sakai Data Center uses 100% renewable energy, and KDDI plans to switch to renewable energy for use in all its data centers both in Japan and overseas by the end of fiscal 2025. [3]
At the Osaka Sakai Data Center, KDDI has utilized the insight it has cultivated in telecommunications and the data center business for over 30 years both in Japan and overseas. The company optimized the entire process from the decision to acquire the land and sign contracts to building the facilities, thereby achieving a rapid launch.
There has been demand in recent years for data centers to provide low-latency response as well as stability and continuity in services in order to foster widespread implementation of AI in many different fields. KDDI will provide AI services with low-latency and high reliability through this AI data center, which boasts excellent access with a location around 15 kilometers from Osaka’s major industrial and commercial areas.
KDDI has implemented direct liquid cooling in addition to conventional air-based cooling for its AI servers, which use the strong computational power of the NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 and other systems. In addition, the company can provide stable and advanced computational power by following the facility design and operational guidelines that are specialized for liquid cooling and were established through field trials at the KDDI Telehouse Shibuya Data Center.
Because the Osaka Sakai Data Center is operating in Japan, KDDI has established a management system in consideration of data sovereignty when using high-performance generative AI models like Gemini. Data is managed in an appropriate manner and in accordance with Japanese laws and regulations, thereby helping to mitigate risks related to data improperly being moved overseas or falling under the control of a third party.
Security camera footage, sensitive video data, corporate secrets, and other highly confidential data can be used for AI training and inference while being stored and managed inside Japan.
In addition to high-bandwidth Internet connections with speeds of up to 100 Gbps, this AI data center has a closed network (KDDI Wide Area Virtual Switch 2) for handling highly confidential data in a secure manner, as well as a multi-cloud gateway that enables high-bandwidth connections with many different public clouds in a closed network. By selecting highly reliable networks to suit each use case, KDDI allows customers to take their data that was dispersed across Japan and integrate it in this AI data center, thereby enabling AI training and inference using large datasets.
KDDI and the KDDI Group company Medical Engineering Institute, Inc. (MEI) plan to work with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited to utilize this AI data center from April 2026 onward in a project that will use AI in a multifaceted analysis of medical big data and explore ways to create new value for patients.
KDDI and MEI aim to provide a one-stop medical AI service with vertical integration that can be swiftly used by Takeda Pharmaceutical and other pharmaceutical companies based on the assets needed for medical big data analysis in drug discovery, clinical trials, and other activities.
Morgenrot Inc. is a startup that aims to provide an ideal computing environment by visualizing, managing, and optimizing the computing resources of companies and sharing their processing power. Morgenrot and KDDI will utilize this AI data center to help achieve faster and more refined fluid analysis for product design in the manufacturing industry and other fields.
Morgenrot and KDDI seek to use this AI data center to contribute not just to automobile manufacturers, but also to the development of aircraft, railway carriages, ships, and other objects for which fluid analysis plays a crucial role.
KDDI and the KDDI Group company ELYZA, Inc. aim to develop and provide services with models that are specialized for individual fields or companies, in addition to conventional base models, thereby accelerating the development and widespread implementation of Japanese-made AI.
KDDI and ELYZA aim to utilize this AI data center to provide integrated services in one place for models that are specialized for individual fields or companies, including everything from development to inference.
If you would like to utilize this AI data center, please refer to the services page (in Japanese only)Open in a new window for KDDI GPU Cloud and contact KDDI.
MWC26 Barcelona is the world’s largest mobile technology exhibition and conference, and will be held from March 2 to 5, 2026 in Spain. The KDDI booth at this event will display an exhibit about the Osaka Sakai Data Center.
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