By Takahiro Tsujimoto

Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

NTT Data Group Corp. announced on Thursday the opening of its 14th data center in Japan in Seika, Kyoto Prefecture. The company is leveraging the generative AI boom to strengthen its data center business, which ranks third globally in market share. The group plans to invest at least 1.5 trillion yen in the business between fiscal 2023 and 2027.

NTT Data became a wholly owned subsidiary of NTT Inc. in 2025, and NTT Global Data Centers Corp., which is under NTT Data's umbrella, oversees the group's data center operations. The newly opened Keihanna OSK 11 Data Center is the company's first project in Japan since it became a wholly owned subsidiary.

The company currently runs more than 160 data centers worldwide. For its domestic plans, the company has announced that it is proceeding with the construction of data centers in the Kansai region -- in Ibaraki, northern Osaka Prefecture, where work is scheduled to finish in February 2028 -- as well as in the Kanto region in Tochigi Prefecture, where completion is expected in fiscal 2029, and Chiba Prefecture, where completion is expected in April 2027.

Exploring opportunities for growth

Doug Adams, CEO and president of NTT Global Data Centers Corp., stressed that the company is constantly exploring opportunities for growth in its rapidly expanding data center business, in a recent interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun. Bruno Berti, a senior vice president of the tech company, also participated in the interview.

The following is excerpted from the interview.

The Yomiuri Shimbun: What are the key features of the Keihanna OSK 11?

Bruno Berti: It was modeled after what we call our global reference design...that allows us to have a data center that works for all types of clients, whether they're enterprise customers, whether they're telecommunication customers, whether they're hyperscalar-type customers, or even AI customers. We can provide customers a whole data hall (housing server racks and networking equipment), a piece of a data hall or different parts of what they want.

Where some of our competitors build purpose-built data centers for individual clients, our data center allows us to be flexible and provide our solutions to different types of customers.

This data center was designed for research, R&D-type initiatives. So it's very important for us to have the latest technologies inside of the data center to support what the clients are doing.

Yomiuri: What are your strengths in the data center sector?

Berti: We have the capabilities of managing from the network, through the data center, through the software, through the management of the systems, all complete stack managed just by NTT, and that's important to clients, because it allows us to help digitally transform their businesses. Very few companies in the globe have the ability to go all the way. Usually, it's many companies working together. We do it as one company.

Yomiuri: How do you view the current state of the data center market?

Doug Adams: The data center market, before AI, was growing at about 13%-15%. When AI hit, the compound annual growth went from 13%-15% to 25%-35%. The data center business was already growing extremely strong. AI moved it to even a higher level...We're selling entire buildings or parts of buildings before the data center's even built. Very few industries are in the situation where we are.

Yomiuri: Given that situation, do you plan to increase the investment you've already announced?

Adams: We are a publicly traded company, so I can't disclose any financial information. What we publicly disclosed is all I'm able to share. What I can say is that we're exploring different opportunities to continue to grow the business.

We are growing over 20% year over year...faster than our competitive set is growing. We have a globalized platform. We're the third largest data center provider globally; we have 160 data centers. (This) makes us less susceptible to supply chain and global economic issues.

Yomiuri: How do you view regional areas within Japan as a market?

Adams: The only thing that we're publicly talking about is our expansion within Tokyo (and surrounding prefectures) and Osaka (and the Kansai region), but we were looking all over Japan.

Yomiuri: What is the impact of recent cost increases across the board?

Adams: One of the advantages of being a global company is that we're able to allocate our resources where necessary, which is a benefit to some of our smaller, regionalized competitors that can be more affected by global economic issues like we're seeing today.

Usually, halfway through a project, we agree on price and terms...with the contractors, and we do buy that out. What that means is...our costs are fixed. And so, we are relatively insulated from the recent economic shifts. If they continue for the long run, they will potentially affect us. But in the short run, we're relatively isolated from it. We still see the rising cost, of course. But that's a very small part of the overall data center build.

Berti: The data center business is helping AI, and one of the things that we are able to do with some of the AI tools that we use as a company is more efficiently design our data center.

Yomiuri: AI seems to be booming, but aren't there concerns about a bubble bursting?

Adams: The data center industry before AI was already growing 10%-15% a year every year. I've heard people talk about potentially there being a bubble for AI...(but) that bubble doesn't affect the infrastructure piece of it. Where their concerns could be is on the software and the operational layer. Fundamentally, whatever the technology is, you're going to need that to run AI. The current AI, we see it today...I think it likely will change over time, but it still requires data centers. And...I can tell you that even in the economic conditions we're facing now globally, with the war in Iran and other geopolitical issues, our business has not slowed down at all.

Yomiuri: In recent years, opposition to data center construction has become more prominent.

Adams: In our industry, the number one issue is finding powered land. The number two issue is continuity of supply chain. The number three issue is being good neighbors. When we come into a community, oftentimes we'll donate money to the community. We put up beautiful buildings like you're standing in, we screen all the infrastructure, so you don't see ugly generators and things from the outside. We build, I believe, very sustainable, very attractive data centers that are very good community partners. That's core to the DNA of NTT, and NTT believes that strongly.

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This article is from The Yomiuri Shimbun. Neither Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, Barron's nor The Wall Street Journal were involved in the creation of this content.

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April 14, 2026 00:59 ET (04:59 GMT)

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