Hong Kong-based new economy real estate manager ESR Group Limited has successfully completed the core and shell of its flagship data center project, ESR Cosmosquare OS1 Data Center (OS1), in Nanko Kita, Osaka, Japan.

The newly completed OS1 is the first hyperscale data center asset within ESR’s 130-megawatt (MW) campus, ESR said in a statement on Thursday.

Being developed over three phases (OS1, OS2, and OS3), ESR’s $2 billion hyperscale data center campus strategically sits within 10 kilometers of the major internet and telecommunication exchanges in the Osaka central business district.

The OS1 data center will be ready for service in May 2025 and once fitted out, it will provide 25MW of data center capacity.

ESR said this milestone is part of the group’s accelerated data centers strategy to execute 575 MW of committed data center sites in key markets across Asia Pacific (APAC), with a pipeline of more than 2 gigawatt (GW) worth of land and projects.

As part of the company’s purpose to drive space and investment solutions for a Sustainable future, ESR said the firm is committed to developing environmentally friendly and industry leading data center solutions for investors, customers, and the communities.

It is noted that OS1 is slated to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) NC v4 Gold certification.

The building is designed with an efficient cooling system to reduce energy use, therefore minimizing the need for chillers while ensuring high reliability and flexibility for the firm’s customers.

Stuart Gibson, ESR Group Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer, said this first Osaka data center development creates a campus-style asset with expansion capability in a prime location of a high growth market.

“This development is a flagship project in ESR’s strategic and accelerated rollout of data centers to capitalize on the unprecedented demand for high-performing digital infrastructure across key markets in APAC,” he said.

Diarmid Massey, Chief Executive Officer of ESR Data Centers, added that ESR’s Cosmosquare campus, which is backed by ESR DC Fund 1, is a notable showcase of their acceleration in strategy to cater to the regional growth of cloud and digital infrastructure.

“We are fulfilling the growing customer need for data center capacity, that is being turbocharged by the outsized artificial intelligence demand that is quickly migrating to APAC,

“Our pipeline of hyperscale data centers will deliver next-generation environmentally focused solutions to our end customers and business partners to power the growth of digital infrastructure in Osaka and across APAC,” he added.

According to the statement, Japan’s booming demand for cloud service solutions is driven by its manufacturing, automotive, and financial services sectors, as well as healthcare and government services.

The accelerating migration of information technology (IT) workloads from on-premises to cloud data centers in the world’s third largest economy is enabling companies and government agencies to seize the opportunity to innovate and achieve higher resource utilization, resiliency, security, and energy efficiency.

ESR Group is one of the largest listed real estate investment managers globally.

Its fund management and development platform extends across Australia/New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Greater China, Southeast Asia, and India, including a presence in Europe and the United States.

It focuses on new economy real assets including logistics, data centers, life sciences, infrastructure, and renewables.

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