Osaka

Osaka Prefecture lies in the Kansai region of Honshu. At about 1,905 km² it is the second-smallest of Japan's prefectures, and about 8.8 million people lived there in 2022. Its capital, the city of Osaka, had about 2.8 million residents in October 2025, the third-largest city proper in Japan. The city hosts the Osaka Exchange and staged Expo 2025.

The prefecture became Japan's second data-centre market after the March 2011 earthquake and the blackouts around Tokyo led firms to keep backup computing in Kansai. Building continues: MC Digital Realty started work on KIX15 on its KIX campus on 7 October 2026. The venture's US parent, Digital Realty, also won a provisional 50 MW allocation in Singapore in August 2026.

Tokyo wants the industry less concentrated: the 2026 communications white paper counts roughly 90% of the country's data centres in Kanto or in Kinki, which includes Osaka, and sets a goal of dispersing them. Enterprise and cloud customers still want low latency to users in the big cities, and that demand keeps operators adding capacity in Osaka.