Toshiba said it would start work on the building next year and expected it to be open by March 2009.

The facility in Yokohama, near Tokyo, will include supercalculators and three-dimensional computers to allow interactive sessions with customers, Toshiba said in a statement.

"As the world experiences a nuclear renaissance, there is growing demand for construction of new nuclear power plants and for aftermarket services for installed equipment," the statement said.

The facility will be attached to the company's existing Isogo Nuclear Engineering Centre. Some 3,000 people will be employed at the Yokohama engineering hub once the addition is completed.

Toshiba said the new facility would be strong enough to withstand an earthquake of 6.8 on the Richter scale, the magnitude that damaged the world's largest nuclear plant in central Japan in July.

Despite experiencing 20 percent of the world's major earthquakes, Japan depends on nuclear power for one-third of its needs as it has few natural energy resources.

Toshiba last year bought US nuclear power plant maker Westinghouse in a multibillion-dollar deal, expecting strong growth in atomic power due to concerns over high oil prices.

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