Digital Realty, the global cloud- and carrier-neutral data center platform, announced Wednesday the expansion of its Digital Realty Innovation Lab (DRIL) into Singapore, Japan and London.

This marks the first expansion of the company’s global DRIL network into Asia Pacific and Europe, following the successful launch of the inaugural DRIL facility in Northern Virginia in September 2025, which has received acclaim from enterprise customers, the firm said in a statement.

The new DRIL locations will offer the firm’s ecosystem of partners and customers fully supported, real-world testing environments where they can bring their own workloads or use pre-configured infrastructure to validate AI and hybrid cloud deployments before scaling.

This is especially important as AI adoption increases and infrastructure readiness has emerged as a critical barrier to moving from experimentation to production at scale.

All three are expected to be available for use by customers and partners this year.

The launch represents Digital Realty’s commitment to support Singapore, Japan and the United Kingdom’s continued leadership in artificial intelligence (AI) innovation.

In Singapore, AI adoption is driving continued growth in the nation’s digital economy, which now accounts for 18.6 percent of total gross domestic product (GDP).

Japan also plans to invest 10 trillion yen ($64.12 billion) or more in the semiconductor and AI sectors by 2030.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s AI sector continues to accelerate, with more than 5,800 AI companies now operating nationwide, sector revenue reaching £23.9 billion ($32.42 billion) and AI generating £11.8 billion ($16 billion) in gross value added (GVA).

According to the statement, the Singapore DRIL is designed to serve as a digital innovation hub, bringing together local customers, partners, and research institutions with global technology providers and industry participants seeking to develop, test and deploy AI and hybrid cloud solutions in Singapore.

In Japan, the DRIL will be located at the company’s NRT12 data center in the Greater Tokyo area.

Designed to support advanced AI and high-performance computing use cases, it will feature 20 racks with direct liquid cooling (DLC) capabilities, enabling support for high-power-density workloads.

The DRIL in the UK will be in London, providing customers and partners with a dedicated environment to test and validate AI and hybrid cloud deployments before full-scale implementation.

“Sustaining rapidly expanding digital economies requires innovation ecosystems built on infrastructure that is not only AI-ready, but also efficient, resilient, and trusted,” said Serene Nah, Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific, Digital Realty.

According to her, since launching the DRIL in the United States, they have seen strong demand from customers and partners across Asia Pacific seeking dedicated environments to validate AI and hybrid cloud architectures before deploying at scale.

“Bringing this capability to Singapore and Japan reflects the digital maturity of these markets and their critical role in shaping the region’s long-term digital competitiveness,

“By creating spaces where enterprises can test, optimize, and de-risk their AI infrastructure, we’re accelerating responsible deployment and strengthening Asia Pacific’s position as a hub for trusted digital innovation,” she added.

Séamus Dunne, Managing Director, UK & Ireland, Digital Realty, said European AI adoption is expected to grow rapidly, and London sits at the center of that growth.

“Launching the Digital Realty Innovation Lab in London gives enterprises and partners a real-world environment to validate AI and hybrid cloud architectures before rolling them out across live environments,

“It’s a critical step in helping organizations deploy next-generation infrastructure faster, and with greater confidence,” he added.

The new DRIL locations will enable businesses throughout Asia Pacific and Europe to test performance, optimize configurations, and seamlessly connect to cloud and network providers via ServiceFabric, Digital Realty’s global interconnection and orchestration platform.

By leveraging Digital Realty’s global experience in deploying AI-ready infrastructure and its proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx) methodology, the DRIL enables customers to test, optimize, and validate AI deployments in real-world conditions, reducing complexity and significantly accelerating the journey from pilot to production.

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