GLP Acquires Sites to Kick Off $12B Japan Data Centre Platform

GLP has secured land to begin developing its first data centres in Japan, joining a throng of global investors attracted to digital infrastructure in Asia’s second-largest economy.

The industrial specialist and fund manager aims to invest more than JPY 1.5 trillion ($12 billion) during the next five years to deliver data centres with 900 megawatts of total power capacity, with a focus on the Greater Tokyo and Greater Osaka regions.

The sites obtained so far will provide 600MW of power capacity once the projects are completed, GLP said Monday in a release. The firm plans to break ground on its first data centre campus in Greater Tokyo in 2023 and put the first building into service in 2024.

“We have a two-decade track record in developing, owning and operating state-of-the-art, sustainable logistics facilities that make the world run more efficiently,” said GLP Japan president Yoshiyuki Chosa. “Our further expansion into data centres is a natural extension of our mission to provide critical infrastructure systems to support increasing digitalisation in the new economy.”

Global Buildout in Progress

GLP has named digital infrastructure as a key growth engine, and the developer is building a global data centre business targeting more than 2,500MW of power capacity.

In China, where GLP aims to provide over 1,400MW of IT capacity, the Singaporean firm recently delivered the first phase of a 120MW built-to-suit data centre campus for a client at Changshu High-tech Industrial Development Zone northwest of Shanghai.

Bloomberg reported this month that GLP was considering a fresh capital raise of $500 million to expand its China data centre platform, in a deal that could give the firm’s digital infrastructure there a valuation between $4 billion and $5 billion.

GLP had discussed combining its China platform with that of data centre operator GDS, the agency said, but talks stalled as the Shanghai firm’s US- and Hong Kong-listed shares tumbled 60 percent in the past year.

With its entry into Japan, GLP is plugging into a data centre market growing annually at a rate of 16 percent year-on-year, driven by increased adoption of new technologies like data analytics and the Internet of Things, the firm said Monday, citing a study by the Fuji Chimera Research Institute.

In addition to China and Japan, GLP has also secured data centre sites in Europe, the developer said.

Joining the Rush

GLP may be a year away from building its first data centre campus in Japan, but various competitors are already at work on their maiden projects in the country.

Last April, arch-rival ESR launched its data centre business with the acquisition of an Osaka asset as part of a planned $2.15 billion project. The Hong Kong-listed logistics giant acquired an existing facility together with associated land for the development, which has the potential to yield a project with a total capacity of 78MW when complete.

ESR’s announcement came just under a month after US-based Equinix opened TY12x, its first hyperscale facility in Asia, on a site in Chiba prefecture just north of Tokyo.

In August of last year, Australian developer Lendlease launched its first data centre project in Japan at a 33,000 square metre (355,209 square foot) site understood to be in Saitama prefecture northwest of Tokyo.

A month later, Colt Data Centre Services began building its first data centre in Japan, a 45MW facility in Keihanna Science City east of Osaka, under a development deal struck by its parent firm Fidelity, finance group Mitsui and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

Last month, US hyperscale specialist Stack Infrastructure teamed up with global investment firm Oaktree Capital Management to build a 36MW data centre campus in Chiba prefecture, marking Stack’s first facility in Asia Pacific.