SoftBank is planning to repurpose a former Sharp LCD panel plant in Japan into a data center to operate artificial intelligence agents developed in partnership with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT based in the U.S., as reported by Nikkei on Friday.

The Japanese telecommunications company intends to acquire the facility and part of the land at Sharp's inactive TV LCD factory in Osaka for about 100 billion yen ($677.05 million).

Scheduled to commence operations in 2026, the center will be among Japan's largest, boasting a power capacity of 150 megawatts.

The collaboration aims to introduce OpenAI's AI agent model to the Japanese market, with plans to train the model using clients' data and deliver personalized AI agents.

The investment is anticipated to be significant, potentially nearing 1 trillion yen ($6.77 billion), according to Japanese media reports.

SoftBank and OpenAI have not yet responded to Reuters' request for comment.