Japan is planning its largest data centre hub to meet growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services, while diversifying infrastructure to areas outside developed urban areas. The project, centred in Nanto City, will feature a total planned power capacity of 3.1 gigawatts, ranking it among the world’s largest data centre clusters.
The Nanto Campus will be built through a public-private partnership between Nanto City and GigaStream Toyama, a specialised digital infrastructure developer. It is also part of an emerging strategy to create new infrastructure hubs outside Tokyo and Osaka, where approximately 85% of the country’s computing power is currently concentrated.
Japan’s data centre landscape has traditionally clustered around its two largest metropolitan regions, which are close to enterprise demand and fibre networks. However, concentrating infrastructure around urban areas can create vulnerabilities to natural disasters, energy bottlenecks, and land scarcity. This is a growing problem, especially as AI workloads, high-performance computing, and hyperscale operations push capacity toward new limits.
Nanto is regarded as one of Japan’s lower-seismic-risk areas, which is important for risk management and disaster recovery. Additionally, the region offers abundant, comparatively low-cost power supplies, which makes it more appealing.
Phased Development Anchors Capacity Build-Out
The campus will be built in phases. The first will support 400MW and is set to launch in late 2028. Phase 1 alone is comparable to some of Japan’s largest facilities, even though it accounts for less than 20% of the project’s finished capacity.
Nanto City mayor Mikio Tanaka framed the project as both a digital infrastructure play and a long-term economic development strategy for the region, saying, “Through the agreement with GigaStream Toyama K.K., we will work with full commitment toward the success of this project so that it contributes to the further development of our city by creating new industrial and employment opportunities. We will also carefully address challenges one by one and provide support so that Nanto City and Toyama Prefecture become major hubs of next-generation digital infrastructure.”
GigaStream Toyama focuses on delivering ‘fully de-risked infrastructure, including power interconnection, fibre backbone access, civil engineering groundwork, and pre-approved development permits. This helps data centre operators to start building as soon as they complete site acquisition.
Regional Hubs Support Market Expansion and Resilience
Japan’s data centre market has been expanding rapidly, reflecting the global trend of rapid growth driven by cloud, AI, digital transformation, and regulatory data localisation. According to industry analysis, the Japanese data centre market is forecast to double to more than ¥5 trillion (about $32 billion) by 2028, with initiatives like the Nanto Campus expected to play a key role in unlocking that growth. The Japanese government also sees the sector as a major driver of foreign direct investment, with targets to attract ¥120 trillion by 2030.
Distributing computing resources beyond Tokyo and Osaka is a strategy expected to boost the resilience of Japan’s infrastructure while helping developers overcome common challenges such as power or land availability.
For local economic planners, the hub presents broader opportunities: job creation, new technology ecosystems, increased demand for construction and operations services, and downstream benefits for regional supply chains.
