Japan's NTT, Tokyu Land, Sakura Internet Form Consortium to Build Major Data Center Hub in Ishikari

A consortium led by NTT East Corporation has been formed to transform Ishikari City in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido into a large-scale data center cluster, leveraging the region's abundant renewable energy and low disaster risk profile. The initiative, announced by NTT East, brings together data center operators, power utilities, and telecommunications infrastructure providers to promote Ishikari as a premier domestic and national data center destination.

The newly established Ishikari Data Center Consortium includes major players such as Sakura Internet, Kyocera, Tokyu Land Corporation and its affiliate Ishikari Renewable Energy Data Center No. 1 LLC, Flower Communications, Broadband Tower Inc., NTT ME Corporation, Ishikari Regional Energy LLC, Liene Inc., and Hokkaido Integrated Communications Network Co., Ltd (HotNet). The group's collective goal is to establish and strengthen the critical infrastructure required for data center operations, including power and communication networks, while working with local government to create development incentives.

Ishikari, located on the west side of Hokkaido, has been identified as an ideal site due to the ample renewable energy resources available in the Ishikari Bay New Port area and its relatively low exposure to natural disasters. "We will ensure that citizens and local businesses experience the social value of the DC, and powerfully promote the appeal of Ishikari City as an 'unprecedented DC cluster' to the entire country," NTT said in the announcement.

The region already hosts a growing data center ecosystem. According to Data Center Map, there are nine data centers on Hokkaido, primarily centered around Sapporo, with operators including SoftBank, Kyocera, HotNet, Sakura Internet, KDDI, and Rakuten. Sakura Internet has operated its Ishikari data center since 2011 and has recently been expanding the facility with GPU deployments. In 2024, Tokyu Land, Flower Communications, and Broadband Tower partnered on a 15MW data center project in Ishikari, which is scheduled to launch this year.

NTT East, part of the broader NTT group that includes NTT West, NTT Docomo, and NTT Communications, operates services from around 30 data center locations across Japan, including facilities in Tokyo, Yokohama, Chiba, Saitama, Ibaraki, Tochigi, and Gunma. The consortium's efforts are expected to significantly bolster Ishikari's position in Japan's data center landscape, potentially attracting further investment and development in the region's digital infrastructure.