KDDI and HPE Join Forces to Launch AI Data Center Operations by Early 2026
HPE's industry-leading direct liquid cooling technologies enable NVIDIA Blackwell-accelerated AI infrastructure
HPE Discover 2025 – HPE (NYSE:HPE) and KDDI Corporation today announced they are collaborating to open the Osaka Sakai Data Center by early 2026 to support startups and enterprises with NVIDIA AI infrastructure for developing AI applications and training large language models (LLMs).
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Antonio Neri, president and CEO of HPE | Hiromichi Matsuda, President and CEO of KDDI
Through the collaboration, KDDI and HPE will deploy a rack-scale system featuring the NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 platform built by HPE, based on the latest NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, within the Osaka Sakai Data Center. The Osaka Sakai Data Center takes advantage of hybrid cooling technology, which combines air cooling and direct liquid cooling, to reduce the facility's environmental impact.
Additionally, KDDI and HPE will jointly promote services delivered from the Osaka Sakai Data Center to accelerate the prevalence and adoption of AI solutions among businesses and consumers in Japan and globally.
HPE supports AI sustainability with liquid cooling expertise
The rapid advancement of AI technology has created a pressing need for large-scale, high-performance AI infrastructure. To address this demand, KDDI is building an AI data center in Sakai City within the Osaka Prefecture of Japan, to support accelerated development of trillion parameter generative AI models.
The Osaka Sakai Data Center will support AI-related business in Japan and globally, serving organizations and individuals developing generative AI models or leveraging the system's low-latency inferencing capabilities. KDDI plans to offer cloud-based AI computing services to organizations through WAKONX, its business platform for the AI era.
The NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 by HPE is a rack-scale system – inclusive of NVIDIA accelerated computing, NVIDIA networking, NVIDIA software – designed to enable large and complex AI clusters that are optimized for energy efficiency and performance through advanced direct liquid cooling.
The rack-scale system is built by HPE, that has extensive global experience in building large AI clusters and five decades of liquid cooling expertise, uniquely positions the company to help KDDI quickly deploy. HPE also offers an extensive infrastructure support system for complex liquid-cooled environments. Equipped with NVIDIA-accelerated networking, including NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand, NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet, and NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs, the system delivers high-performance network connectivity for diverse AI workloads. Customers can also run the NVIDIA AI Enterprise platform on the KDDI infrastructure to accelerate development and deployment.
"Our collaboration with KDDI marks a pivotal milestone in supporting Japan's AI innovation, delivering powerful computing capabilities that will enable smarter solutions, contributing to greater productivity, and further advancing technological leadership," said Antonio Neri, president and CEO of HPE. "The Osaka Sakai Data Center will benefit from HPE's industry-leading cooling expertise, which powers high-performance AI systems while significantly reducing environmental impact. We look forward to partnering with KDDI on their bold vision to unlock new possibilities for customers on their AI journeys."
"We are pleased to embark on the upcoming deployment of a high-performance GPU infrastructure at our Osaka-Sakai Data Center through our collaboration with HPE," said Hiromichi Matsuda, President and CEO of KDDI. "HPE's deep expertise in supercomputing and advanced cooling technologies will be instrumental in driving the evolution of next-generation AI data centers. Together with a passionate partner like HPE, we are excited to take on the challenge of shaping a sustainable future where we coexist with AI."
KDDI and HPE will continue to strengthen their collaboration to advance industry leading AI infrastructure and deliver innovative services—while enhancing energy efficiency.
About HPE
HPE (NYSE:HPE) is a leader in essential enterprise technology, bringing together the power of AI, cloud, and networking to help organizations achieve more. As pioneers of possibility, our innovation and expertise advance the way people live and work. We empower our customers across industries to optimize operational performance, transform data into foresight, and maximize their impact. Unlock your boldest ambitions with HPE. Discover more at www.hpe.com.
About KDDI
KDDI is a telecommunication service provider in Japan, offering multitude of services to individual customers through its "au", "UQ mobile" and "povo" brands, and to corporate customers through its "KDDI BUSINESS" brand. In May 2022, KDDI had stated "KDDI VISION 2030: The creation of a society in which anyone can make their dreams a reality, by enhancing the power to connect". Under this vision, KDDI is promoting its business strategy in the Mid-Term Management Strategy (FY2022–FY2025), defined as the "Satellite Growth Strategy". With a focus on 5G communications, data-driven practices, and generative AI, KDDI will accelerate business growth by providing value-added services in the growth areas of DX, finance, energy, and life transformation (LX) which encompasses five areas of future growth (Mobility, Sports/Entertainment, Web3/Metaverse, Healthcare, and Space). Placing "sustainability management" at the core, KDDI will aim to achieve the sustainable growth of society and the enhancement of corporate value together with our partners, by harnessing the "Satellite Growth Strategy" and strengthening the management base.
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