Mitsubishi Corporation Expands its Data Center Presence with Entry into US
Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) announced its acquisition of a majority interest in two fully leased data centers developments in Dallas, Texas. The decision to invest in these assets, which are anticipated to have a combined cost of approximately $800 million upon completion and represent MC’s first overseas venture into data-center (DC) business, was fueled by the expertise in the DC industry that MC has built up in Japan, as well as its track record in US real-estate and urban-development projects.
MC made a commitment to Japan’s DC industry in 2017 when we partnered with the largest DC-focused REIT in the US, Digital Realty Trust Inc. (Digital Realty), to establish the joint-venture company MC Digital Realty. Combining MC’s experience in real-estate, urban-development and DC management with Digital Realty’s overseas customer network and know-how in large-scale DC operations, MC Digital Realty has realized tremendous growth since its inception, significantly outpacing that of the market. In addition to providing companies engaged in generative artificial intelligence (AI) with cutting-edge DC services that can accommodate the processing capabilities of the very latest AI semiconductors, MC Digital Realty has partially decarbonized its power sources and taken some pioneering steps in this industry.
The US is the world’s largest DC market. Rapid transitions to digital and data-driven societies, coupled with a proliferation of generative AI technologies and services, have helped boost the year-on-year growth rates of the country’s major markets to approximately 20%[1]. These and other recent developments have enhanced the mega-market potential of the US and fueled expectations for even more growth in the coming years. Driving this growth are cloud service providers, large financial institutions, and other entities that are keen to decarbonize, and switching to eco-friendlier data centers is helping them to achieve that aim. In fact, the US is one of the world’s most advanced DC market in terms of green power supply and energy conservation.
Both of the data centers that MC has acquired are located in Texas, a state leading much of the economic growth that is currently taking place in the US. Furthermore, MC has a strong business history in the state, having engaged in real-estate projects there for more than three decades through our Dallas office. We look forward to leveraging that network and expertise to help strengthen and grow our DC business throughout the US.
Data centers and other digital infrastructure support the growth of new technologies that promise to revolutionize our daily lives and businesses. By building expansive DC operations in the US and using the experience and expertise gained from them to establish similar operations in Japan and other regions, MC is aiming to grow our DC business both domestically and internationally, focusing on peripheral advanced fields such as generative AI, semiconductors, and communication technologies, while taking into account their ripple effects. We shall continue exploring ways to leverage green energy and energy-conservation work to accelerate the supply of sustainable computing resources, thereby contributing to society’s ongoing growth and development.
