ESR, Stack Team Up Again for 72MW Osaka Data Centre Campus

Just three months after announcing an initial joint venture in Korea, ESR Group has teamed up with US-based operator Stack Infrastructure once again to develop a 72-megawatt Japan data centre campus targeting hyperscale customers.

ESR and Stack will jointly build a server-hosting campus in Keihanna, an eastern suburb of Osaka, starting late next year, the companies announced Monday. The project, equally owned by the two parties, aims to service hyperscale clients, major cloud service providers and other large enterprise customers.

“ESR’s strong regional development capability in Tier 1 data centre markets ensures we are well-positioned to continue to aggressively develop data centre facilities across Asia Pacific,” said Diarmid Massey, chief executive officer of ESR Data Centres. “Our partnership with STACK enables us to leverage our respective strengths to target hyperscale customer growth in key markets.”

The joint venture project will bring ESR’s Japan portfolio to 168 megawatts, with Osaka also being home to the company’s first-ever data centre investment – the 96-megawatt ESR Cosmosquare hyperscale campus being developed in the Nanko Kita area near the city centre.

Going Live In 2025

Stack will be the operating partner for the Osaka campus, which will include three buildings that can either be built-to-suit or be used for colocation. Construction of the first facility will commence by the fourth quarter of next year, and is scheduled for completion in the second quarter of 2025.

The partners said the campus will feature higher rack density as well as “robust access to power and network. Its design will also support industry-leading energy and water usage efficiency, and green building standards.

While the partners did not disclose the project’s exact location, the Keihanna region is home to a research and tech hub named Kansai Science City stretching 154 square kilometres (59 square miles) across the borders of Osaka, Kyoto and Nara prefectures.

Kansai Science City is already established as a hub for data centre development, with Colt Data Centre Services announcing a project in the industrial zone last year and NTT announcing a new server facility in the Kansai area in September of this year.

ESR and Stack’s first joint venture in Incheon, near Seoul was announced in September, with the partners set to start construction on a 48-megawatt facility during the first quarter of next year, with Stack also serving as the operating partner for that project.

Building APAC Infrastructure

The Keihanna facility marks the sixth APAC location for Stack, a US hyperscale specialist launched by Chicago-based private equity firm IPI Partners in 2019. Based on independent estimates, the company’s development portfolio in the region has reached as much as 280 megawatts in capacity across Japan, Korea and Australia.

“This campus further deepens our partnership with ESR, allowing us to combine our capabilities to meet our clients’ strategic requirements in existing and emerging Tier 1 data centre markets,” Stack APAC CEO Pithambar Gona said.

The Keihanna project comes as Stack is already at work developing a facility in Chiba prefecture which aims to deliver 36 megawatts in capacity by the fourth quarter of 2023. To date, Japan is Stack’s second largest market in Asia Pacific, with the company currently developing up to 108 megawatts in the country.

In Australia, Stack has established a 124-megawatt pipeline across Melbourne, Canberra and Perth, with the company having opened its regional headquarters in Singapore in October 2021.

ESR reached a first closing of its $1 billion inaugural data centre investment strategy five months ago. Aimed at financing development projects in the region, the company’s Data Centre Fund 1 already had a pipeline of eight projects with over 300 megawatts in capacity when the first closing was announced.

In Monday’s announcement ESR said the vehicle has ongoing development projects in Hong Kong, Osaka, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney, Mumbai and Singapore.