March 14 (Reuters) - SoftBank plans to

transform a former Sharp LCD panel plant in Japan into a data

center for operating artificial intelligence agents developed in

collaboration with U.S.-based ChatGPT creator, OpenAI, according

to a Nikkei report on Friday.

The Japanese telecom giant is set to purchase the facility

and a portion of the land at Sharp's shuttered TV liquid crystal

display factory in Osaka for approximately 100 billion yen

($677.05 million), the report said.

($1 = 147.7000 yen)