SWCC and Faraday Factory Japan Agree to Put Superconducting Cable Inside Data Centres
SWCC and Faraday Factory Japan have signed a basic agreement to bring superconducting cable systems into use in data centres by fiscal year 2030. The first step is a demonstration-scale test line at SWCC’s Sagamihara facility. Faraday Factory Japan will supply the high-temperature superconducting (HTS) wire, and its cumulative deliveries have now passed 10,000 km.
Power distribution inside the data centre is the first target
On 4 August 2026, SWCC and Faraday Factory Japan signed a basic agreement to develop superconducting cable systems for data centres and put them into working use by fiscal year 2030.
The application they are aiming at first is power distribution inside the building, which calls for low-voltage, high-current supply at large capacity. The opening phase is a demonstration-scale test line at SWCC’s Sagamihara facility.
The cable is a fraction of the size, weight and heat of conventional cable
Against a conventional cross-linked polyethylene insulated (CV) cable, SWCC puts the superconducting cable’s cross-sectional area at about one fifth, its weight at about one thirty-fifth, and the heat generated in transmission at about one tenth. Each of those matters in a data hall, where routing space, structural load and waste heat all limit how much power can reach the racks.
Each company supplies one half of the system
SWCC takes cable design, manufacturing, installation and system design, including terminations and cooling. The company has worked on superconductors since 1988 and states it is the only company in Japan able to design and build an entire superconducting cable system covering terminations, cooling and installation. Its cables use a three-phase coaxial design that stacks the three phases on a single axis so their magnetic fields cancel each other, which removes the need for a superconducting shielding layer and cuts the amount of tape a cable consumes.
Faraday Factory Japan supplies the HTS wire. Its cumulative deliveries now exceed 10,000 km, going to fusion, energy, aerospace, medical and scientific projects. The company passed 5,000 km delivered to fusion in September 2024.
Steel, chemicals, mobility and fusion come later
Beyond data centres, the two companies name further targets: in-plant distribution at steel and chemical works, next-generation mobility, and fusion energy. All of them sit behind the data-centre programme.
The agreement pairs a wire maker with a cable-system builder, which is the combination a deployable product needs. Other partnerships and deployments in the same market are listed in our project tracker.