Real estate logistics provider, GLP, has announced a substantial plan to enter the Japanese data centre market, with a target of delivering 900 megawatts (MW) of power capacity, which would make the company one of the leading data centre operators in the country.
GLP is targeting to invest more than JPY 1.5 trillion (~$12 billion) over the next five years to support the increasing demand for high-performance and environmentally-friendly data centres in Japan. The focus of investment is centred on the regions of Greater Tokyo and Greater Osaka, the main economic clusters in the country, which are the most active and demanding areas for online consumption and digital applications, which is driving demand for data centres.
The company has secured land to develop state-of-the-art data centre assets that will provide approximately 600 MW of power capacity when they are completed. GLP expects to break ground on its first Japanese data centre campus in Greater Tokyo in 2023, with the first building expected to be ready for service from 2024.
Yoshiyuki Chosa, president of GLP Japan, said: “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. 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. With our investment and operating expertise, we believe we are well-positioned to build and scale a high-quality, full-service digital infrastructure platform to serve the growing needs in this market and serve the growing institutional investor demand for this asset class.”
Japan’s data centre market is growing annually at a rate of 16 per cent year-on-year. Increased adoption of new technologies, data analytics and the Internet of Things has translated to a surge in demand for secure, reliable and efficient digital infrastructure solutions to support digital consumption across work, life and entertainment. Third-party data centre providers offer access to leading-edge infrastructure, economies of scale and modern, energy-efficient technologies and equipment with lower upfront capital requirements and increased flexibility to seamlessly scale to adapt to evolving business demands.
Digital infrastructure is a key growth engine for GLP, sitting alongside the established logistics real estate business and the emerging renewables business. To offset this high-energy-consuming industry, GLP data centres will align with GLP’s ESG policy and seek to adopt efficiency measures throughout the design, build and operations stages to reduce operational costs for customers while helping them reach their sustainability goals. These include determining the most energy-efficient configuration to optimise airflow design, promoting the use of clean energy from renewable sources and intelligently linking IT and facility management with performance-related metadata to optimise cooling and power usage effectiveness.
GLP is building a comprehensive digital infrastructure business of more than 2,500 MW. In China, GLP is one of the largest vertically integrated data centre operators with over 300 team members and assets that will provide over 1,400 MW of IT capacity. GLP recently delivered the first phase of a 120 MW built to suit data centre campus in Changshu High-tech Industrial Development Zone, Jiangsu Province outside of Shanghai to one of GLP’s existing customers. In addition to China and Japan, GLP has also secured prime data centre campus sites in Europe to capitalise on growth opportunities in the digital infrastructure industry.
