ESR Teams With Colt to Develop 130MW Osaka Data Centre Campus

Asian industrial giant ESR and London-based Colt Data Centre Services have set up a joint venture to develop the first phase of a 130-megawatt hyperscale campus in suburban Osaka.

The 65MW initial phase will be designed and built by the ESR-Colt JV and operated by Colt, the companies said Thursday in a release. Site preparation is underway, with construction set to begin in 2027 and the first data centre building expected to be ready for service in late 2029.

The project in the city of Minoh, north of Osaka, will occupy a site spanning 140,000 square metres (1.5 million square feet) of land acquired by the JV and rezoned for the development in partnership with the local government. The purpose-built data centre is designed to support hyperscale, AI and large enterprise-driven workloads, according to ESR.

“Japan is a key pillar of our data centre strategy, and our joint venture with Colt DCS marks a milestone in our blueprint to deliver next-generation data centre infrastructure that underpins digital growth across the region,” said ESR co-founder and co-CEO Stuart Gibson.

Projects in Progress

Singapore-based ESR’s latest Japan project comes after the developer and fund manager recently completed the 25MW first phase of its maiden data centre campus in the country, the 130MW Cosmosquare in Osaka’s seaside Nanko Kita precinct.

In January, ESR partnered with US builder CloudHQ to help get the $2 billion Cosmosquare project to the finish line. The campus is backed by ESR’s first-ever data centre fund, which achieved a $1 billion first closing in 2022 and subsequently grew to $1.35 billion.

Cosmosquare is part of privately held ESR’s accelerated strategy to execute 575MW of committed data centre sites across key Asia Pacific markets. In May 2024, the group announced the groundbreaking of its fourth data centre location in Japan, a 60MW facility in Tokyo’s eastern Koto ward, boosting the company’s project pipeline in the country to 320MW.

In April of this year, ESR and US hyperscaler Stack Infrastructure began construction of an 18MW data centre in Keihanna, a suburban server-hosting hotspot east of Osaka, as the first phase of the 72MW KIX01 campus.

No financial details were revealed about the Minoh campus, which includes improvements like extended road connectivity and community amenities such as an international school, local park, retail and shared facilities. The JV is aiming for LEED Gold certification for the project.

“Beyond its technical capabilities, the site will be a vibrant hub for local innovation, engagement and sustainable growth,” said ESR data centre CEO Diarmid Massey.

Accelerating Expansion

Colt previously opened a Keihanna data centre in 2023 after developing the 45MW facility in partnership with Colt’s US parent firm Fidelity and Japanese giant Mitsui.

That same partnership has agreed to sell a hyperscale data centre in Inzai, a digital infrastructure hub east of Tokyo, to Singapore’s Keppel DC REIT and its sponsor in a deal valued at S$707 million ($551 million) after the recently opened facility was leased to Microsoft.

“Colt DCS has built a strong track record of delivering world-class data centres for our hyperscale customers in Japan,” said CEO Niclas Sanfridsson. “The joint venture with ESR will allow us to accelerate our expansion in Japan, enabling us to support the expansion plans for our global cloud customers and the emerging AI sector.”