Gaw Capital Partners, an Asia-Pacific focused real estate private equity firm, and ESR Cayman Limited, the largest Asia-Pacific focused logistics real estate platform, this week announced two separate data center development projects in the market of Tokyo, Japan. Notably, both data centers are located in the western part of Japan’s capital city, separated by only 8 miles (12.5 kilometers). Below are further details on Gaw Capital and ESR Cayman’s data center developments in Tokyo, Japan:
- Gaw Capital: 39 megawatts of IT capacity and 4.0k racks at Fuchu Intelligent Park, in the city of Fuchu
- ESR Cayman: 20 megawatts of IT load in the city of Higashikurume
Both Gaw Capital and ESR Cayman state that their projects reside in established data center clusters, which are located ~18.5 miles (30 kilometers) west of central Tokyo. As such, both firms are capitalizing on Tokyo’s key data center demand drivers, including:
- Prominent technology and financial market for the northwestern part of Asia
- Country’s high data consumption, mobile broadband penetration, and large market size
- Landing point for numerous subsea cables connecting the western United States to the rest of Asia
- Proximity to availability zones of cloud service providers including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, and Tencent Cloud
Gaw Capital – Scales Data Center Campus in Tokyo
Gaw Capital has acquired Fuchu Building in Fuchu Intelligent Park, which is located in the city of Fuchu, within the western Tokyo Metropolis. The property is adjacent to another building in Fuchu Intelligent Park, which Gaw Capital also owns (acquired in July 2021), known as Meito Sangyo Building.
Overall, Gaw Capital plans to combine the Fuchu and Meito Sangyo assets for the purposes of redeveloping the site into a data center campus, over two phases. Particularly, the firm’s plans are as follows:
- Phase I: Meito Sangyo Building is currently under construction to redevelop it into a carrier-neutral data center
- Phase II: Fuchu Building will be demolished, with its 59.0k sqft (5.5k sqm) land site being redeveloped into part of the data center campus
Collectively, Gaw Capital’s data center campus in Fuchu Intelligent Park will reside on total land area of 118k sqft (11.0k sqm). Upon completion, the data centers will comprise 39 megawatts of IT capacity and 4.0k racks, with a total of 50 megawatts of power capacity.
In terms of customers, Gaw Capital notes that it is targeting data center operators and hyperscale tenants.
Data Centers Elsewhere in Asia-Pacific
Gaw Capital Partners is investing out of its seventh Asia-Pacific real estate fund, Gateway Real Estate Fund VII. As of November 2021, the fund had raised total equity of $1.2bn, alongside $400m of equity for sidecar co-investments. Ultimately, the Gateway Real Estate Fund VII targets a capital raise of $2.5bn at its hard cap.
This fund’s opportunistic investment strategy targets real estate assets mainly in Asia-Pacific and notes a desire for geographic exposure to China, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, Southeast Asia, and Australia, as well as asset class exposure to data centers. To this end, Gaw Capital’s existing data center investments in the Asia-Pacific region include:
Data Center First
In July 2021, Gaw Capital formed a new joint venture, known as Data Center First, alongside Wong Ka Vin as Chief Executive Officer, with its initial project in Batam, Indonesia, an island which sits ~20 miles (~32 kilometers) off the coast of Singapore. Specifically, the company is building a 30-megawatt facility on 2.75 hectares of land in Nongsa Digital Park (NDP).
China
Gaw Capital has raised total equity of ~$1.3bn to build data center clusters in China, with its largest backer being the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). Particularly, the group’s initial project in China is located in Kunshan, Jiangsu, which is near Shanghai. The project consists of two phases with a total gross floor area (GFA) of 3.2 million sqft (300k sqm).
ESR Cayman – Enters Tokyo, Japan Data Center Market
ESR Cayman has acquired a data center site in the city of Higashikurume (Mitaka area), within the western Tokyo Metropolis. Presently, the property comprises three office buildings across a total site area of 225k sqft (20.9k sqm).
Through redevelopment of the buildings, ESR Cayman plans to create a data center with 20 megawatts of IT load. In terms of timing, the new facility is expected to commence operations in September 2025.
Regarding customers, ESR Cayman’s data center will support enterprises located or expanding in West-Central Tokyo, as well as hyperscale, wholesale, and retail colocation providers.
Data Centers Elsewhere in Asia-Pacific
ESR Cayman has a data center pipeline of over 1,200 megawatts of capacity across the Asia-Pacific region. Specifically, this capacity includes India (300+ megawatts), Greater China (250+ megawatts), Singapore (160+ megawatts), Japan (150+ megawatts), South Korea (100+ megawatts), Malaysia (100+ megawatts), Indonesia (100+ megawatts), and Australia (40+ megawatts).
To-date, ESR Cayman has invested in the following data center development projects:
- Osaka, Japan: multi-phase data center development located in Nanko, within the city of Osaka, Japan. Originally billed as a 78-megawatt data center campus, ESR Cayman is scaling the project to be a 98-megawatt development
- Hong Kong: $675m conversion of a cold storage building in Kwai Chung, within the New Territories region of Hong Kong, into a data center with 40 megawatts of power capacity overall
- Jakarta, Indonesia: 20-megawatt overall development project led by LOGOS Group in Jakarta, Indonesia
