Digital Realty launches its first Asia Pacific Innovation Lab in Japan to support AI and hybrid cloud deployments.
Digital Realty has opened the first Asia Pacific Innovation Lab (DRIL) in Japan through MC Digital Realty, a joint venture between Digital Realty and Mitsubishi Corporation. This marks the second DRIL globally, following the inaugural facility in Northern Virginia in September 2025, with a third planned for Singapore in the second half of 2026. The Tokyo facility is designed to provide Digital Realty's local partners and customers with a production-grade environment to test and optimize AI and hybrid cloud architectures under real-world conditions.
Japan's investment in digital infrastructure is intensifying as the nation accelerates investments in semiconductor and AI technologies, with plans to invest 10 trillion yen or more in these sectors by 2030. As AI adoption expands across industries, enterprises require infrastructure capable of supporting high-density, performance-intensive workloads while maintaining operational efficiency and resilience. The DRIL in Japan addresses this demand by enabling hands-on evaluation of infrastructure configurations, including both air-cooled and direct liquid-cooled environments, allowing customers to validate performance, power density and cooling strategies before full-scale deployment.
The facility features racks equipped with direct liquid cooling capabilities that enable high-power-density workloads, supporting advanced AI and high-performance computing use cases. As of launch, over 20 partner companies are using the DRIL to explore integrated infrastructure for faster AI and hybrid cloud implementation. Tokyo's DRIL enables businesses to test performance, optimize configurations, and seamlessly connect to cloud and network providers via ServiceFabric, Digital Realty's global interconnection and orchestration platform, while leveraging the company's Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx) methodology.
Chris Sharp, Chief Technology Officer at Digital Realty, stated: "We're seeing strong global demand for infrastructure that can support complex, high-density AI workloads. Japan is uniquely positioned as a growth engine for AI innovation, combining advanced technology infrastructure with access to the broader Asia Pacific market, home to nearly 60 percent of the global population." Chris Han, Chief Operating Officer of MC Digital Realty, added: "This facility enables enterprises to evaluate both air-cooled and direct liquid-cooled environments and identify the optimal configuration for their requirements before full-scale deployment."
Digital Realty operates a global data center platform with over 300 facilities in 55+ metros across 30+ countries on six continents. MC Digital Realty, established in September 2017, is a 50/50 joint venture between Mitsubishi Corporation and Digital Realty, providing full-spectrum data center, colocation, and interconnection solutions tailored to Japan's evolving digital landscape.