KDDI's AI Data Center in Osaka Begins Operations

Tokyo, Jan. 23 (Jiji Press)--Japanese telecommunications company KDDI Corp. said it has started operating a large-scale data center specifically designed for generative artificial intelligence in Sakai in the western Japan prefecture of Osaka.

KDDI acquired the site of Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp.'s halted liquid crystal display panel plant in Sakai for 10 billion yen last April to build the data center. The company managed to bring it into operation in less than a year by utilizing existing power and cooling infrastructure.

The data center's servers employ the latest AI computing infrastructure featuring U.S. semiconductor giant Nvidia Corp.'s image processing chips.

KDDI anticipates that the data center will be primarily utilized by the pharmaceutical industry starting in April, with expectations of reducing analysis times for electronic medical records and cutting costs.

The data center has a total floor area of 57,000 square meters and is entirely powered by renewable energy-derived electricity.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]