SWCC Plans to Quadruple Its Superconducting Wire Capacity and Build Two Cable Lines at Sagamihara
SWCC plans to quadruple its own high-temperature superconducting (HTS) wire production capacity by fiscal 2029, according to the Japanese trade paper Nikkan Tekko Shimbun. The same month the paper and its stablemate Japan Metal reported two further projects at the same Sagamihara site: a demonstration line for superconducting cable systems costing about ¥1 billion and a prototype line for cable conductors. SWCC has issued no announcement of its own on any of the three.
SWCC will add firing furnaces to reach four times its current wire capacity
Nikkan Tekko Shimbun reported on 3 September 2026 that SWCC will expand its HTS wire manufacturing capacity to four times the current level by fiscal 2029, by adding to the equipment that deposits the superconducting layer at its Sagamihara business site in Chuo Ward, Sagamihara City. The additions are a pre-firing furnace and a main firing furnace, a reel-to-reel continuous type that crystallises the superconducting layer. The paper named data centres, electric aircraft and industrial plants as the target markets. It gave no current capacity figure and no investment amount.
By the same account, SWCC makes rare-earth HTS wire by metal organic deposition (MOD), in which a solution of the superconductor’s raw materials is coated onto the tape and then fired. This differs from pulsed laser deposition (PLD), the vacuum deposition route many other producers use. Our guide to how HTS tape is made explains the process.
The capacity plan follows an earlier wire project at the same site. In July 2025 SWCC said it aimed to begin producing an ultra-thin HTS wire at Sagamihara by fiscal 2026, halving the wire’s thickness and weight with a thinner Hastelloy metal substrate, for smaller, higher-performance motors such as those for electric aircraft.
A ¥1 billion demonstration line will show the cable system to customers
Japan Metal reported on 4 September 2026 that SWCC plans a demonstration line for its superconducting cable system at Sagamihara by around 2028, with planned investment of about ¥1 billion. The line is meant to let customers see the system running, win further customers and advance commercialisation.
Conductor prototyping moves from Aichi to Sagamihara by fiscal 2027
Nikkan Tekko Shimbun reported on 7 September 2026 that SWCC will set up a prototype production line for HTS power cable conductors at Sagamihara by fiscal 2027, taking over conductor prototyping from its Aichi plant in Toyokawa. The line will strand HTS wire and apply electrical insulation. Our cable anatomy page shows what sits inside a superconducting cable.
SWCC’s cables use a three-phase coaxial design in which the three phases share one axis and their magnetic fields cancel, which removes the need for a superconducting shielding layer and cuts the tape each cable needs. The target is a practical data centre cable system by fiscal 2030.
Faraday Factory Japan supplies wire under the 2026 data centre agreement
On 4 August 2026 SWCC and Faraday Factory Japan signed a basic agreement to put superconducting cable systems into data centres by fiscal 2030, starting with a demonstration-scale test line at Sagamihara. Faraday Factory Japan supplies the HTS wire and SWCC handles cable design, manufacturing, installation and system design, as covered in our earlier article. SWCC has worked on superconductors since 1988.
SWCC makes its own MOD wire and is expanding that capacity, while Faraday Factory Japan supplies wire for its data centre cable programme. None of the September 2026 reports explains how the two sources of wire relate.