Tokyo-based gaming services provider Ubitus KK is looking to acquire land for a new data centre in Kyoto, Shimane or a prefecture in the southern island of Kyushu where it would have access to nuclear power, Ubitus KK CEO Wesley Kuo said in an interview with Bloomberg. The company already operates two data centres for gaming in Japan, in partnership with Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. It plans to build a third to serve generative artificial intelligence, he said.
“Unless we have other, better, efficient and cheap energy, nuclear is still the most competitive option in terms of cost and the scale of supply,” Kuo noted. He said renewables such as solar and wind power are too intermittent. “For industrial use, especially AI, they need a constant, high-capacity supply.” Ubitus aims to select a location for its new data centre during the first quarter of 2025, Kuo said. He has already visited sites in Kyoto and Shimane and plans to travel to Kyushu.
Ubitus, which received funding from California-based software and fabless company Nvidia in March, was founded in Taiwan in 2007 and is now based in Tokyo, with partners including Nintendo Co. Its data centres are located in Tokyo and Osaka to be close to gaming clients. However, for generative AI, the priority will be the size of energy supply and electricity price, Kuo said. The new data centre will need 2-3 MW of electricity initially, potentially increasing this to 50 MW, he added.
Kyoto is close to several NPPs operated by Kansai Electric Power Co. Kyushu has four units managed by Kyushu Electric Power Co. Chugoku Electric Power Co is scheduled to restart unit 2 of its Shimane NPP in December. Shimane unit 1 is now being decommissioned but Chugoku has initiated the regulatory process for starting up Shimane 3, a new 1,373 MWe advanced boiling water reactor, which is nearing completion.
To date, following the closure of all of Japan’s reactors in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, 24 have already been decommissioned. Of the 27 that have undergone safety screenings, the restart of 17 has been approved, 12 of which have already resumed operation.
Ubitus follows a number of major tech companies which are seeking to use nuclear power for AI and data centres Amazon, Google and Microsoft have all recently made investments to gain access to nuclear energy.
Recently, Amazon announced a $500m deal with US Dominion Energy to explore building a small modular reactor (SMR) near the North Anna NPP. Google had earlier announced an agreement to purchase power generated from multiple SMRs to be built by nuclear energy startup Kairos Power. Meanwhile, Microsoft teamed up with Constellation Energy to resurrect a unit of the Three Mile Island NPP in Pennsylvania.
