- The new facility in Osaka follows AirTrunk’s existing campus and responds to rapid growth in AI, cloud and enterprise compute demand.
- The project underscores Japan’s increasing significance in regional digital infrastructure investment and connectivity.
What happened: AirTrunk expands Osaka footprint with second data centre
AirTrunk, a leading developer and operator of hyperscale data centres in the Asia Pacific region, has announced plans to construct a second hyperscale facility in Osaka, Japan. The expansion comes amid strong demand for data centre capacity driven by growth in artificial intelligence, cloud services and enterprise digital transformation.
The new Osaka development will sit alongside AirTrunk’s existing facility and is part of the company’s broader strategy to support high-performance workloads, including those associated with AI training and inference, large-scale cloud computing and digital services. While specific details on build-out timelines and capacity have not yet been disclosed, AirTrunk emphasised that the site will be designed to meet the needs of hyperscale customers requiring high power density and connectivity.
Osaka has emerged as a key hub for digital infrastructure in Japan, benefiting from its strong industrial base, proximity to business centres and improving connectivity to other major Asia Pacific markets. The choice of location reflects AirTrunk’s confidence in long-term demand for infrastructure in western Japan, complementing capacity in Tokyo and other regional nodes.
AirTrunk’s existing Osaka facility, which opened in recent years, has attracted interest from cloud providers and enterprises seeking localised compute and storage capacity. The second campus is expected to build on this momentum, facilitating additional investment and potentially drawing further international customers.
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Why it’s important
The announcement highlights the continued acceleration of data centre investments in response to AI-driven compute demand. Hyperscale facilities — designed for large customers such as cloud providers, tech giants and enterprises with substantial compute needs — are becoming central pieces of digital ecosystems. By expanding in Osaka, AirTrunk is positioning itself to capture a growing share of workloads that require low-latency access and robust connectivity within Japan and across Asia Pacific.
For Japan, the expansion reinforces the country’s role as a critical digital infrastructure hub. With increasing focus on onshore data sovereignty, connectivity between regional economic centres and the rise of AI applications across industries, additional capacity in Osaka could help alleviate clustering pressures in existing metropolitan areas and diversify infrastructure locations.
The project also feeds into broader market trends where global hyperscale operators are diversifying their geographic footprint to mitigate risks, balance capacity distribution and accommodate the sprawling compute requirements of AI and cloud ecosystems.
