Mitsubishi Corp. is planning to convert a former JFE Holdings steel mill in Kawasaki into a major data center, investing up to ¥150 billion ($1 billion) to meet soaring demand for artificial intelligence computing power.
The project, slated for completion by fiscal 2030, will repurpose the East Japan Works Keihin site where JFE ceased blast furnace operations in 2023. The facility will house servers equipped with Nvidia’s advanced semiconductors capable of handling AI workloads.
Joint surveys with JFE Steel’s parent company will begin in fiscal 2025, followed by coordination with Kawasaki municipal authorities before finalizing investment decisions.
The new data center is expected to consume between 60,000 and 90,000 kilowatts of electricity, making it Mitsubishi’s largest such facility. Currently, the company operates eight data centers across Japan’s Kanto and Kansai regions with a combined power consumption of 168,000 kilowatts, positioning it as Japan’s second-largest data center operator after Nippon Telegraph and Telephone.
The trend of repurposing industrial sites for data centers is accelerating across Japan. SoftBank and KDDI have acquired portions of a former Sharp LCD plant in Osaka, while Mitsui Fudosan purchased part of a Hino Motors factory in Tokyo for similar developments.
