Bloomberg: UAE weighs $6.3 billion AI data centre in Japan
Mubadala eyes major 500MW AI project in Akita, northern Japan
#UAE #datacentres - Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company is considering investing ¥1 trillion ($6.3 billion) to build an AI data centre in Japan, according to Bloomberg. The agency reported that Mubadala would lead the 500-megawatt investment to be located in Japan’s Akita Prefecture. The report added that Mubadala could bring in other foreign and domestic investors due to the size of the deal. The deal would extend a growing list of large-scale data centre and AI infrastructure investments Mubadala has made globally over the past several years. Bloomberg cited a person familiar with the matter as a confidential source, who wasn’t authorised to speak publicly.
SO WHAT? - The UAE is seeking out some of the largest and most strategic global data centre investments, from the USA, to Europe and across Asia. A $6.3 billion for a single data centre project would be a large deal even for Mubadala and so a Mubadala-led consortium seems a more likely structure if this progresses. Japan has so far struggled to build data centre capacity fast enough to meet AI demand, partly due to land and power availability in its major hubs. So building a 500 MW project in a less obvious location like Akita, probably reflects a strategy to overcome such challenges.
KEY POINTS:
Mubadala Investment Company is considering investing up to ¥1 trillion ($6.3 billion) to build an AI data centre in Japan’s Akita Prefecture, according to Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter.
The project would have 500 megawatts of capacity and may include additional foreign and domestic investors alongside Mubadala.
Mubadala has built one of the most active data centre and AI infrastructure portfolios globally. Notable investments include a stake of up to $500 million in North American operator Cologix in 2019; a $350 million investment in Asia-focused Princeton Digital Group in 2022; and a 2023 investment in Aligned Data Centers alongside Macquarie Asset Management (see ZOOM OUT).
Mubadala has participated directly, and through MGX and G42-linked structures, in major AI funding rounds including OpenAI’s $6.6 billion round in 2024, alongside investments in Anthropic and Databricks.
Mubadala is a founding partner of MGX, the Abu Dhabi technology investment company established by the Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council (AIATC) to invest in AI infrastructure, semiconductors and core AI technologies globally and locally.
Mubadala has repeatedly described AI-enabling infrastructure, including data centres, semiconductors, fiber networks and power, as central to its technology strategy. The fund has tens of billions of dollars deployed across AI, digital infrastructure, life sciences and clean energy.
ZOOM OUT - Last month MGX, together with the newly formed Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP) and BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), completed a $40 billion acquisition of Aligned Data Centers, one of the largest private digital infrastructure deals to date. Mubadala had acquired a minority stake in the data centre group in 2023. The Dallas operator runs 51 campuses and more than 6.4GW of capacity across the US and Latin America, and the consortium committed a further $5 billion to expand its AI-ready capacity. The deal also ties into the US-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership, under which the UAE commits to investing a dollar in US AI infrastructure for every dollar it invests in data centres in the Middle East.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Source: Bloomberg
Read more about recent Mubadala investments:
Abu Dhabi startup Skipr raises $2 million (Middle East AI News)
AppliedAI closes Pre-Series B funding round (Middle East AI News)
GlobalFoundries commits $16B for AI chip production (Middle East AI News)