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Yomiuri Shimbun file photo An aerial view of a plant of Sharp Corp. for liquid crystal display panels in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture
By Takuya Ono / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
7:00 JST, January 3, 2025
SoftBank Corp. will build a next-generation industrial park including a data center with advanced artificial intelligence in as early as 2026, utilizing a plant of Sharp Corp. for liquid crystal display panels in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.
Making use of the industrial park, SoftBank will encourage the development of new products and services in a wide range of sectors to help foster local industries.
In December, SoftBank decided to acquire the LCD panel plant and surrounding facilities for ¥100 billion. The company plans to build an AI data center, using more than 20% of the plant’s 600,000-square-meter total floor area, and invite companies to the remaining area.
Data center
“We will create an industrial park with ‘AI brains.’ We want to revitalize all industries with AI,” SoftBank President Junichi Miyakawa said during an interview. The company plans to encourage not only large firms but also small and midsize enterprises as well as startups to use the industrial park.
SoftBank plans to procure state-of-the-art graphics processing units from U.S. semiconductor giant Nvidia Corp. for AI data processing at the data center. The system will be available for use by companies in the industrial park.
As the data will be handled without going through external communication lines, risk of leaks of proprietary technology and intellectual property will be reduced, the company said.
Operations that will be invited to the park are expected to be those in the research and development sectors of manufacturing and pharmaceutical firms. It is hoped that the use of AI will dramatically shorten the time needed to develop new drugs and materials.
SoftBank will also consider building production bases that are autonomously managed by AI, with an eye on the decline in the working population. This includes the construction of unmanned factories where AI designs production lines according to demand, and bases for vegetable cultivation and in-land fish farming where AI manages their growth, in an effort to support the innovation of primary industries such as agriculture and fishing.
According to estimates by the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training, Japan’s labor force will decline to 60.02 million in 2040, down 9 million from 2022, if the economic growth rates remain close to zero.
“This is a critical situation. The decline will start in rural areas and undermine industries,” Miyakawa said. “We will just have to use AI as a tool to make up for the decrease. This is the key to preventing regional economies from collapsing.”
Increase in demand
Demand for data centers that use large amounts of electricity is expected to increase further in the future. SoftBank has announced a plan to build data centers around the country to respond to the situation, and the company has already begun building one in Tomakomai, Hokkaido. Positioning the initiative in Sakai as a stepping stone toward the future, the company hopes to build similar AI-based industrial parks around the nation, leading to regional revitalization.
