Data Center Investment News — 18/08/2023
Real estate group GLP breaks ground on Tokyo hyperscale data centre
Real estate group GLP Pte Ltd. has broken ground on Tokyo West 1 (TKW1), its first three-building data centre campus totalling 31 MW IT load in West Tokyo, Japan.
The first phase of the development, Building 1, is expected to be ready for service by end of February 2025 and has been designed to meet both hyperscale and enterprise customer demand.
Buildings 2 and 3 representing 10 MW and 11 MW IT load, respectively, will be developed in sequence in the vicinity of the same site.
The site area amounts to 3,400 square metres with total floor area across the three facilities will add up to 8,700 square metres.
Yoshiyuki Chosa, President and CEO of GLP Japan, said: “This groundbreaking marks our first data centre facility in this region and represents a significant milestone as we further establish our digital infrastructure business to be a leading provider in Japan. As a rising data centre hub in Asia, Tokyo is a prime location for our entry into the market and we look forward to serving hyperscale and enterprise customers’ data capacity needs in this region.
“We will leverage our expertise, scale and synergies with our renewable energy business to provide customers with sustainable digital infrastructure to power the future.”
Spencer Building Carrier Hotel to convert 1926 building into a data centre
Spencer Building Carrier Hotel said it has obtained the necessary permits to commence the construction of a new data centre in the heritage section of Vancouver‘s iconic Harbour Centre, originally built in 1926.
Following a year of anticipation since the initial announcement, this milestone marks a significant advancement towards meeting the increasing IT infrastructure and connectivity needs of Vancouver’s burgeoning digital landscape.
Currently in its preconstruction phase, Spencer Building Carrier Hotel will fully commence construction in August 2023, with completion and the launch of operations expected in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Chris Jones, Director of Data Center Infrastructure and Operations at Spencer Building Carrier Hotel, said: “The arrival of Spencer Building Carrier Hotel in Vancouver is a testament to our commitment to offering premiere data centre services that are economically viable for our customers and backed by the rich connectivity legacy of Harbour Centre.
Bitdeer completes construction of 100MW Bhutan cryptomine data center
Singapore-based cryptominer Bitdeer has completed the construction of a new mining data center in Gedu, Bhutan.
The facility is undergoing power-on testing, with 11,000 mining machines running stably.
In July, the company announced that it had acquired 23,000 mining machines with an additional 7,000 currently in transit for a total of 30,000 that will eventually be hosted at the facility.
The facility was developed after Bitdeer and Bhutan’s investment arm looked to raise $500 million in May 2023. At the time of the fundraising, the project was expected to result in a 100MW data center completed between June and September that would be powered by hydroelectric power. According to Crypto.news, Bhutan spent five percent of its gross domestic product on Bitcoin mining hardware.
EdgeCore breaks ground on data center in Reno, Nevada
Data center firm EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure has broken ground on a new facility in Reno, Nevada.
The company this week announced it has begun construction on its initial data center campus in metro Reno, Nevada, nearly five years after initially planned.
The 56-acre campus, along USA Parkway in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, will see two data centers developed totaling 1.5 million square feet (139,355 sqm) of space and capable of supporting 216MW of critical IT load. Completion is expected as early as late 2025.
“The demand for data center space in California continues to outpace the availability of land and power, so Reno’s location just 250 miles and three milliseconds away makes it an incredibly attractive option for the world’s largest cloud and Internet companies,” said Clint Heiden, chief commercial officer, EdgeCore. “Add to that a 30 percent lower total cost of ownership versus a comparable deployment in the Bay Area, and Reno simply must be considered by businesses searching for data center space near the west coast.”
Virginia’s King George County looks to approve 7.5m sq ft data center park for Amazon
The planning commission in King George County, Virginia, has given the preliminary green light to proposals for a 7.5 million sq ft (697,000 sqm) data center campus that is set to be occupied by Amazon.
First reported by the Free Lance-Star, the Planning Commission recommended approval for the project, for which Amazon will be the end customer.
Birchwood Power Partners was requesting permission for an amendment to the County’s Comprehensive Plan as well as rezoning of land from Limited Agricultural (A-1) and Rural Agricultural (A-2) to Industrial District (I) zoning, as well as proffer and special exemption amendments that would clear the way for an 869-acre data center park.
“We believe the application as presented is reasonable and consistent with the county’s long-term economic development planning,” said Charlie Payne, the lawyer representing Birchwood.
GDS launches data center campus in Johor, Malaysia
GDS has launched a new data center campus in Johor, Malaysia.
The company this week announced the grand opening of its Nusajaya Tech Park (NTP) data center campus.
Phase 1 of the campus (consisting of Nusajaya 1, 2, 3, aka NTP1, 2, 3) offers a total net floor area of 22,500 sqm (242,200 sq ft) and 69.5MW.
William Huang, chairman and CEO of GDS, said: “As the first and only data center player that has identified Sijori region as a strategic location for data center deployment, GDS enjoys a significant first-mover advantage and possesses extensive industry know-how.”
He continued: “We are confident that our NTP data center campus will serve as a catalyst for the region’s journey towards a world-class AI computing hub.”
GDS, founded in 2006, operates dozens of data centers across Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Hong Kong. As well as expanding into Malaysia, last year the company also bought land in Indonesia for a planned development.
Quinbrook’s Rowan planning 1 million sq ft data center campus in Morrow County, Oregon
Rowan Green Data is planning a data center in Morrow County, Oregon.
First reported by the East Oregonian, the County planning commission late last month recommended approval of plans for the Percheron Data Center outside Boardman. The proposal will be sent before the County Board of Commissioners later this month.
The company is requesting to rezone around 274 acres approximately nine miles south of I-84 on Tower Road from Exclusive Farm (EFU) use to General Industrial (MG) and adopt a Limited Use Overlay Zone to limit MG uses to a data center only.
Rowan is aiming to develop a 1.125 million sq ft (104,515 sqm) data center complex totaling four buildings. Construction is slated to begin in 2024, pending site approvals.
The property is located roughly 11 miles southwest of Boardman, just north of the Carty Reservoir and the Carty Generating Station; a 450MW combined-cycle natural gas-fuelled electric generating power plant that will in the future include a 50MW solar farm.
IXAfrica acquires 11 acres for second data center campus in Nairobi, Kenya
IXAfrica has acquired land for a second data center site in Nairobi, Kenya.
The company signed a deal with local real estate developer Tilisi Developments plc to purchase 11 acres of land for the construction of its second data center campus in the Kenyan capital.
Due diligence is currently underway to determine the exact size of the campus, with initial estimates pointing to a 30MW+ facility.
Guy Willner, chairman of IXAfrica, said: “This expansion reaffirms our commitment to the region and our belief in its immense potential for growth and technological advancement.
“With Tilisi’s industrial parks, high-quality development, reliable power and water supply, fresh air, and advantageous altitude for free cooling, this new campus will provide an ideal environment for our data center operations. With latency sub-5ms between the two campuses, the distance satisfies the maxima and minimal requirements for hyperscale deployments.”
Principal Asset Management has acquired a logistics facility in the Netherlands that will be repurposed into a data center.
The company this week announced it has acquired a logistics facility for the Principal European Data Centre Fund I. Terms of the deal were not shared.
The acquired facility, located in the Schiphol area of Amsterdam, spans 24,755 sqm (266,460 sq ft). It is set to be leased and converted into a 42MW data center by Switch Datacenters.
“We are pleased to be working with Switch Datacenters given the company’s strong track record of operating in the Amsterdam market,” said Paul Lewis, director of European data centers, Principal Asset Management.
“We were particularly impressed by the market-leading sustainability initiatives featured in the facility and the ways in which it will provide substantial benefit to the local community. Our investment in Amsterdam is a significant step forward as we create a high-quality pan-European portfolio of leased data center assets.”