Overview

Table: Japan’s Cloud Services Market Size (Unit: US$ billions) 

Source: Data: IDC Japan, Feb 2024 

Japan’s cloud services market has experienced steady, sustained growth. Projections by IDC Japan, an IT market research and consulting company, indicate that Japan’s cloud services market will reach approximately $29 billion in 2025. Forecasts for 2026 suggest the market will continue to expand with an annual growth rate exceeding 15%, reflecting a strong and long-term growth trend.

The growth in Japan’s cloud services market has been mainly driven by Japan’s adoption of digital transformation (DX) tools which have become a standard practice in Japanese enterprises. As Japanese companies increasingly prioritize system modernization and efficiency, their investment in IT infrastructure and cloud platforms is steadily expanding. Additionally, Japan’s adoption of generative AI technologies is creating new demands for scalable and flexible cloud infrastructure which is resulting in further investment opportunities in the cloud sector. Cloud services have become a core part of Japan’s growing digital economy, with the market anticipated to experience strong growth in the coming years.

In Japan’s Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) markets, major U.S. cloud service providers— including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, and Microsoft—have high percentages of users.  According to a MM Research Institute 2022 survey, AWS services over half of the Japanese companies utilizing both PaaS and IaaS services.

Leading Sub-sectors  

With increases in the rates of cloud computing adoption and Japan’s digital transformation (DX) initiative, Japan’s data center market has also been growing.  IDC Japan reported that the size of Japan’s data center market reached $19.5 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach $33.3 billion by 2028.

Domestically, the importance of energy-efficient and green data centers is increasing, reflecting growing environmental concerns. In addition, to reduce risks, there is an ongoing development of geographically distributed data centers across regional areas. The increase in new technologies like generative AI is driving up demand for data centers, which will result in continued growth for Japan’s data center market.

Opportunities 

Japan’s Digital Agency maintains a list of cloud services vendors authorized to provide cloud services to Government of Japan agencies (“Government Cloud”). The authorized vendors must meet approximately 330 benchmark standards. In 2023, the Digital Agency allowed companies to form partnerships to meet the benchmark standards. This change enabled Sakura International to be certified as the first authorized Japanese Government Cloud vendor.  As of June 2025, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle, and Sakura Internet are the only companies certified as providers to the government. 
 

Resources

Government of Japan - Digital Agency 
The American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (“ACCJ”) / ACCJ Digital Economy Committee 
Upcoming Japan Cloud Computing Events

Japan IT Week
Date: October 22-24,2025
Venue: Makuhari Messe, Chiba

Gartner IT Symposium
Date: October 28-30, 2025
Venue: Tokyo, Japan

Commercial Service Japan  

For additional information about Japan’s cloud computing business sector, please contact Commercial Service Japan (“CS Japan”) at Office.Tokyo@trade.gov or Ms. Atsuko Shimada at Atsuko.Shimada@trade.gov