Colt Data Centre Services is set to expand its foothold in the Japanese market with the imminent launch of a fourth data centre in the city of Inzai near Tokyo, following the recent debut of another facility near Osaka. The company has also set its sights on further growing its global portfolio across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
With the recent groundbreaking ceremony and approaching launch of its fourth data centre in the city of Inzai near Tokyo, Colt Data Centre Services (DCS) is continuing to expand on its long-standing experience as a hyperscale data centre provider and specialist within Japan and the wider Asia-Pacific region.
As a country, Japan has one of the highest numbers of internet users in the world, at 116 million, and is seeing rapid digital growth and rising connectivity. That has happened as the nation has been investing to develop Society 5.0, a concept introduced by the Japanese government in 2016 to boost the economy through further digital adoption and help bring about improvements in citizens’ way of life.
The type of accelerated growth happening now presents both many opportunities and future challenges for digital infrastructure providers operating in the country.
Colt DCS set out to further address these rising demands this March by launching one of Japan’s largest data centres to date, in Keihanna Science City, located near Osaka in the southern region of Kansai. The facility has 42,000 square metres of space and a designed capacity of 45.9MW, while representing a major advancement in the company’s journey to meet customer needs for robust and scalable data services.
The launch marked a fresh milestone in the expansion strategy of Colt DCS, which is rooted in the principles of sustainability, operational excellence and outstanding customer service. In designing and developing the Osaka Keihanna data centre, the company built on key learnings from its industry-leading Inzai campus, where it already has three data centres and is now constructing a fourth.
The start
The history of Colt DCS in Japan started in 2002, when it launched a data centre in Koto-ku, Tokyo. In 2008, the company moved into Inzai City in the prefecture of Chiba, becoming the area’s first foreign data centre provider.
After opening its first data centre there, Inzai 1, in 2011, Colt DCS saw the city’s entire digital infrastructure grow rapidly first-hand. Other data centre providers, both foreign and domestic, sprung up in the area following the launch, and the related acceleration of Inzai’s digital infrastructure has positively affected the economy through job creation and regional investment.
Evidence of that effect is indicated by the significant increase in size of the local population, estimated to have risen 18% from fewer than 90,000 people in 2011 to more than 105,000 in 2023.
But Colt DCS didn’t stop there. Learning from and building on its initial success, the company launched a second Inzai data centre in 2017. With the provider’s excellent service reputation preceding it, Inzai 2 was fully tenanted before the site was fully constructed. The company was met by an outstanding reception, with partners and customers signing contracts to stay in Inzai for up to 10 years.
In 2020, Inzai 3 was completed with long-term customer contracts occupying 90% of the available capacity in the data centre. The company pre-sold 94% of its capacity before Inzai 3 launched.
Colt DCS delivered each of these data centre projects efficiently, on time and within budget, while achieving the expected returns on investment for shareholders and bringing added value to customers in the industry.
The company was, meanwhile, named Japan Data Center Services Company of the Year by Frost & Sullivan in 2021, a prestigious award that examines criteria such as customer experience, operational excellence, technical capabilities and innovation.
The present
Now, Inzai City has become a prime area for data-centre real estate, with the Chiba region known in the industry for being a stalwart of Japan’s data-centre community.
With the Inzai campus and the recent start of construction of the Inzai 4 data centre, Colt DCS is building on its commitments to customers by developing in key growth areas. That’s all powered by efficient and resilient connectivity, with the company having fibre routes in key places, plenty of available power and the flexibility to ensure customers have agile connections when required.
Meanwhile, Colt DCS translated key learnings from its construction and management of the Inzai campus into the earlier opening of its Osaka Keihanna data centre.
Despite the Osaka Keihanna facility being one of the largest data centres in Japan so far, Colt DCS set out to design it with the company’s sustainable DNA at its heart. From a technological and environmental perspective, for example, the facility incorporates the latest cooling techniques to minimise the company’s environmental impact.
More widely, Colt DCS has pledged to be a driver for change by becoming net zero for global carbon emissions by 2045.
This renewed focus on sustainability has received recognition and interest from the company’s large enterprise and cloud service provider partners and customers, which are looking to incorporate sustainable initiatives within their own business practices.
The future
The technological investments by Japan’s government have established the country as one of the world’s leading tech hubs. Driven by the Society 5.0 initiative and a growing number of internet users, increasing digitalisation is boosting data use across the country.
This activity has also allowed the customers of Colt DCS to gain a foothold in the Asia-Pacific region, especially large enterprise and cloud service providers looking to spread mission-critical operations across multiple Japanese locations. This has, in turn, allowed the company to further accelerate its hyperscale strategy for Japan.
The start in construction of the Inzai 4 data centre this April now reinforces the position of Colt DCS in the Japanese market and is set to spark additional growth in the sector.
Furthermore, it comes as part of a wider global expansion by the company – which announced in 2022 that it had acquired 10 parcels of land across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region to construct and manage additional hyperscale data centres.
Colt DCS, which has more than 25 years of experience in the industry, currently has 16 data centres. It is also set to dramatically increase the total capacity of its global portfolio with 500MVA of secured power to support the development of its latest hyperscale data centres.
Colt DCS looks forward to welcoming in this new wave of expansion and is excited to build on its clients’ vision in the region, as well as building on its own vision of being a trusted partner for its customers and shareholders.
