Princeton Digital Group (PDG), an Asia-focused data center platform, backed by Warburg Pincus and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), today announced that it is developing a 97-megawatt data center campus in Tokyo, Japan (TY1 or PDG Saitama), committing $1bn in investment, equating to a cost-to-build of $10.3m per megawatt.
Princeton Digital’s expansion into Japan is part of the company’s broader plan to build a data center portfolio with 600 megawatts of power capacity across the Asia region.
Tokyo (TY1) / PDG Saitama – Princeton Digital Development
Princeton Digital plans to build one of the largest hyperscale data center campuses in Tokyo, Japan, with a total equity and debt investment of $1bn. Specifically, this project is in Saitama City, one of the major commercial centers of the Greater Tokyo Area. The site is located 18.5 miles (30 kilometers) north of central Tokyo.
Princeton Digital’s new campus at Saitama City, dubbed TY1 or PDG Saitama, will have 97 megawatts of critical IT capacity built across two phases of 48.5 megawatts each. The TY1 facility will be built on total land area of 356k sqft (33.0k sqm).
Build-Out
Princeton Digital has already secured the land and power with plans to begin construction later in 2021. Phase 1 of the facility, offering 48.5 megawatts, will be ready for service by Q2 2024. Subsequently, Phase 2 of the facility, providing an additional 48.5 megawatts, will be ready for service by Q2 2026.
Also, Princeton Digital will build the facility with a focus on scalability, connectivity, reliability, and energy efficiency (PUE of <1.23).
Customers
Princeton Digital’s TY1 facility is designed to serve global hyperscale customers and, in particular, cloud service providers, in Japan. Below are select examples of Princeton Digital’s current customer base which could be anchor tenants for the TY1 campus:
- E-commerce: Amazon, Alibaba, Pinduoduo, Lazada
- Cloud Service Providers: Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, IBM Cloud
- Content: Facebook
Tokyo – Market Overview
Tokyo is the largest data center market in Asia, outside of China. Moreover, Tokyo has a strong runway for growth as global hyperscale customers continue to enter and expand in the market.
Greater Tokyo’s hyperscale colocation market will reach $1.6bn by 2025. Indeed, this implies a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25% between 2021 and 2025.
Demand Drivers
The Greater Tokyo data center market will benefit from hyperscale customer deployments, and, in particular, U.S. and Chinese cloud service providers. Demand from these customers is principally driven by:
- Lack of Domestic Competition: Japan does not have its own domestic cloud service provider. In turn, cloud service providers from the U.S. (e.g., Amazon Web Services) and China (e.g., Alibaba Cloud) are filling a void in the market
- Connectivity Hub: Japan is a key connectivity aggregation and distribution hub for subsea cables landing from the West Coast of the United States to access the Asia-Pacific region
Princeton Digital – Data Center Portfolio
Excluding Japan, Princeton Digital Group (PDG) owns a portfolio of 18 data centers in 12 cities, across China, Indonesia, Singapore, and India, which will comprise over 350 megawatts of power capacity, once fully built-out. Of these data centers, 9 facilities are operational and 9 are development projects.
Following China, Indonesia, Singapore, and India, Japan becomes the fifth market that Princeton Digital has entered since its formation 4 years ago.
