Hong Kong-listed real estate investment manager ESR Group has begun construction of a 19.2-megawatt data centre in Osaka, Japan.

ESR Cosmosquare OS1 is part of a 96MW hyperscale data centre campus being developed over three phases (OS1, OS2 and OS3) in Osaka’s Nanko Kita, within a 10-kilometre distance to major internet and telecom exchanges in the city’s central business district. The entire project is expected to cost more than US$2 billion.

An artist's impression of ESR Cosmosquare OS1.

The OS1, scheduled to be completed in July 2024, is designed for cloud service providers, data centre operators and enterprises that are already providing services in the Osaka CBD and for those that wish to bring new services into central Osaka.

The data centre market in Japan, which encompasses facilities, hosting, outsourcing, and managed services, was valued at US$10.7 billion in fiscal year 2021, according to Statista. With the growing importance of information technology operations and solutions, the market is projected to increase steadily in the coming years and reach US$15.2 billion by fiscal year 2027.

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

The accelerating migration of IT workloads from on-premise to cloud data centres 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.

The OS1 is aiming for an LEED NC v4 “Gold” certification. The building is designed with an efficient cooling system to reduce energy use and minimize the need for chillers.