Sharp to Convert 60% of SDP Factory Area into SoftBank Data Center

According to TapTechNews on June 11th, Sharp officially announced on June 7th that 60% of the area of its SDP (Sakai Display Products) LCD factory in Sakai City will be converted into a SoftBank data center.

Due to reasons such as the display department's failure to respond quickly to market changes, Sharp incurred losses again in fiscal year 2023 (TapTechNews note: as of March 2024).

In mid-May, Sharp announced a comprehensive contraction of the display business, and the most important decision was to shut down the SDP Sakai City LCD factory by the end of September.

This also means that Japan officially withdraws from the production of large display panels for TVs.

According to the agreement signed between Sharp and SoftBank, SoftBank will build an ultra-large AI data center with a load power of 150 megawatts based on the SDP factory building with an area of approximately 440,000 square meters and a total construction area of approximately 750,000 square meters.

This data center will start construction in the autumn of 2024 and aims to be put into operation by the end of 2025, and the future power consumption will further increase to 400 megawatts.

The LCD factory in Sakai City has existing factory buildings and power infrastructure. SoftBank can save on infrastructure expenses by building a data center here, and Sharp can obtain certain income from it to make up for the losses in the previous display business.

The data center of SoftBank will carry its AI-related businesses in the future and be open to external users. According to the agreement between the two parties, Sharp and SoftBank will consider cooperating in AI business in the future.