NTT Docomo Business this week announced it will provide Rapidus with liquid-cooled data center capacity via the former’s Green Nexcenter design.

The deployment will support the chipmaker’s AI efforts.

Full details of the deployment haven’t been shared, but NTT noted that NTT Docomo Building is working on developing a campus in Hokkaido to support the semiconductor industry.

First announced in 2024 and located in Chitose City, the Hokkaido IOWN campus will utilize the optical technologies NTT is developing. The area is also being developed as a semiconductor manufacturing base.

NTT noted the limits of air cooling when supporting the “enormous compute resources” required for semiconductor design and manufacturing, especially in mask correction (optical proximity effect correction) when forming circuit patterns on semiconductor wafers.

“HPC-scale server clusters are indispensable for next-generation semiconductor development promoted by Rapidus, and achieving both stable operation and reduction of environmental impact is a crucial challenge,” NTT said.

Rapidus was founded in November 2022 by the Japanese government and industry partners, including SoftBank, Sony, and NTT, with the aim of boosting domestic chip production. At the time, it was said the company would develop sub-2nm chips using technology licensed from IBM.

Earlier this year, the company started testing its first production line in Hokkaido, Japan, and is expected to start manufacturing 2nm chips in 2027.

In Japan, NTT Docomo currently operates data centers around Tokyo (x7), Yokohama, Osaka (x2), and Kagawa under the Nexcenter name. The company also operates a facility in Shanghai, China, and two in Hong Kong.