NEC has launched two new data center buildings at its campuses in Kanagawa and Kobe, Japan.

“In response to the recent increase in demand for data centers, NEC opened the "NEC Kanagawa Data Center Phase 2 Building" and the "NEC Kobe Data Center Phase III Building" as green data centers that utilize 100 percent renewable energy,” the company announced this week. “Furthermore, we have realized a design that can handle the high waste heat generated by the highly integrated computers such as GPU servers that are increasing with the advancement and spread of AI.”

The company first announced plans for the two buildings in September 2022. The Kanagawa was originally planned to launch in the latter half of 2023.

The two facilities can handle densities of more than 20kW per rack.

Both facilities utilize a combination of self-generated electricity from solar power sources, a green power certificate, and a non-fossil certificate with tracking. The buildings operate with a PUE of 1.16.

According to its cloud solutions page, NEC operates three core cloud data centers; one in Kobe to the west of Osaka, another in Kanagawa to the south of Tokyo, and one in the Inzai area to Tokyo’s east which was completed in 2022.

Kobe Phase 2 was announced in 2018 alongside a site in Nagoya.

As well as the three cloud facilities and a data center in Nagoya, the company also has smaller data centers in Ehime prefecture on Shikoku Island; Fukuoka City on Kyushu Island; Sapporo City on Hokkaido Island; Hiroshima; Tokyo; and Kanagawa Prefecture (but separate to the cloud Kanagawa facility) in Kawasaki City, Yokohama City, and East Japan.

NEC also has a data center joint venture with local system integrator SCSK, which is part of the Sumitomo Corporation conglomerate. SCSK operates 10 data centers in Japan totaling 95,000 sqm (one million sq ft) through its netXDC subsidiary [not to be confused with Australia's NextDC].

The company is reportedly considering a possible sale of its data center assets.