NTT has broken ground on a new data center in Osaka, Japan.

“On October 1, NTT Global Data Centers celebrated the groundbreaking of Osaka North 1 Data Center, a new 36MW data center campus in Ibaraki City, Osaka Prefecture, located just 20km from central Osaka,” the company said on LinkedIn this week.

The first of two three-story buildings, with a capacity of 18MW across 5,000 sqm (53,820 sq ft), is expected to go live by early 2028.

The groundbreaking included a traditional Shinto ceremony, with senior executives gathered to bless the land.

Globally, NTT has more than 1.5GW of data center capacity across 20 countries in North America, Asia Pacific, EMEA, and India. Its international facilities are mostly managed through its NTT Global Data Centers unit.

In Japan, NTT GDC has data center sites in Osaka, and Keihanna in the Kansai region, and outside Tokyo in Shiroi. Earlier this year, NTT Data announced it had acquired land in both Tochigi and Osaka for new data center development.

The wider NTT business has several other data centers in the Osaka area – including facilities operated through NTT Domoco’s Nexcenter unit and NTT West’s NTT SmartConnect.

Osaka is one of Japan’s major data hubs, alongside Tokyo. Operators in the region include Equinix, Colt, Digital Edge, Digital Realty, ESR, Ada, Stack, AirTrunk, EdgeConneX, CapitaLand, CloudHQ, Vantage, CyrusOne, and others.