NTT to Deploy Liquid-Cooled Data Center Capacity for Rapidus Chip Development in Japan
April 29, 2026
NTT to Deploy Liquid-Cooled Data Center Capacity for Rapidus Chip Development in Japan
NTT Docomo Business has announced it will supply liquid-cooled data center capacity to Rapidus, the Japanese government-backed chipmaker, through its Green Nexcenter design, marking a significant step in supporting the country’s push to revive domestic semiconductor manufacturing. The deployment is specifically aimed at handling the enormous computational demands of next-generation chip design and production, which traditional air cooling can no longer sustain.
Under the agreement, NTT Docomo Business will leverage its Nexcenter platform to deliver the cooling infrastructure needed for Rapidus’s AI and semiconductor development workloads. While full details of the deployment have not been disclosed, NTT noted that its subsidiary, NTT Docomo Building, is developing a dedicated campus in Hokkaido to support the semiconductor industry. First announced in 2024 and located in Chitose City, the Hokkaido IOWN campus will incorporate NTT’s advanced optical technologies and is being positioned as a hub for semiconductor manufacturing.
The company highlighted the limitations of air cooling when supporting the enormous compute resources required for semiconductor design and manufacturing, particularly in mask correction—also known as optical proximity effect correction—used when forming circuit patterns on semiconductor wafers. “HPC-scale server clusters are indispensable for next-generation semiconductor development promoted by Rapidus, and achieving both stable operation and reduction of environmental impact is a crucial challenge,” NTT said.
Rapidus was founded in November 2022 by the Japanese government and a consortium of industry partners including SoftBank, Sony, and NTT itself, with the goal of boosting domestic chip production. The company initially announced plans to develop sub-2nm chips using technology licensed from IBM. Earlier this year, Rapidus began testing its first production line in Hokkaido and is expected to begin manufacturing 2nm chips by 2027.
NTT Docomo currently operates data centers across Japan, including seven in Tokyo, one in Yokohama, two in Osaka, and one in Kagawa, all under the Nexcenter brand. The company also runs facilities in Shanghai, China, and two in Hong Kong. This latest collaboration underscores the growing need for specialized cooling infrastructure as high-performance computing becomes integral to advanced semiconductor fabrication.
Source: datacenterdynamics
