GLP has announced large-scale plans to enter the Japanese data center market.
The Singapore-based logistics real estate firm said this week it aims to invest ~$12 billion over the next five years to deliver 900MW of data center capacity in Japan, which it said would make the company one of the leading data center operators in the country.
The company – which has a logistics business in Japan spanning around 10 million sqm – said it aims to focus investment in the Greater Tokyo and Greater Osaka regions, and has secured land to develop 600MW of capacity at full built-out. GLP expects to break ground on its first campus in Greater Tokyo in 2023, with the first building expected to be ready for service from 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. Our further expansion into data centers is a natural extension of our mission to provide critical infrastructure systems to support increasing digitalization in the new economy,” said Yoshiyuki Chosa, President of GLP Japan. “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.”
The company also noted that it has secured “prime data center campus sites” in Europe, but didn’t provide details.
Founded in 2009, GLP is a global investment manager in logistics, digital infrastructure, and related technologies. The company claims that its assets, including those under construction, will deliver about 1,400MW of IT capacity upon completion.
The company doesn’t have a complete list of its facilities on its site, but in November it completed the first 150,000 sqm (1.6 million sq ft) phase of development at its GLP Changshu Southeast Data Centre in Jiangsu Province. At full build-out, the facility is targeted to provide more than 120MW and more than 300,000 servers worth of capacity.
The company was also previously reported as developing the GLP Huailai Internet Data Centre in Hebei, Northern China. The company said it had invested RMB 10 billion ($1.5 billion) in the facility, with the first phase of development providing 4,000 cabinets accommodating up to 60,000 servers. When fully built out, the data center will offer more than 15,000 cabinets and 200,000 servers.
Last year, GLP said that it had built "a competitive data infrastructure business" after investing in Chinese data centers in 2018. "GLP’s data center business is focused on the core, backbone nodes of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Greater Bay Area."
A sponsored article in Pere magazine claimed GLP had built a team of 200 people to develop data centers, hiring from companies like Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu. In 2019, GLP acquired a 60 percent stake in local data center company Cloud-Tripod.
Chinese cloud & data center firm GDS Holdings was reportedly interested in acquiring GLP last year for up to $10 billion. But the talks have reportedly stalled over valuation disagreements.
The company was recently reported as looking to raise $500 million to fund further data center development in China.
