JA
Founder Message
We are an asset management company established to promote investment in Japan for the assets in the digital infrastructure sector.
The development and acceleration of the digital & digital infrastructure mainly pulls economic growth, not only in Japan but also around the world. Meanwhile, digitalization in Japan is still lagging behind major Western and Asian countries (Japan ranks 27th in the World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2020). It has passed more than 20 years since the beginning of 21st century. In Japan, however, we could not have big innovation because the political, administrative, economic, and social systems have never broken away from their traditional ways. I believe this is one of the reasons why we are too much behind other advanced countries in this field.
Going back to the late 1990s, Japan experienced financial crisis following the bursting of the bubble economy. At that time, Western investment funds accelerated their investment to non-performing loans and real estate in Japan, and gained a lot. Japan was able to escape from the worst-case scenario and gradually set a roadmap for the revival of the Japanese economy. Although Japan gained a chance to go to direct finance from indirect, it has not yet been able to create the huge investment funds like those of western countries, middle east countries and Singapore. I believe that one of the reasons for this is the national character of the Japanese people. Our risk-taking sensitivity differs from that of continental peoples. But what about this situation from the fast-growing companies point of view which requires huge capital investments? If it is difficult to raise funds through indirect financing. Without the risk money to the project, there is no hope for the future growth of the Japanese economy, and that would take away the opportunities from many talented people and companies that are trying to create new business.
Now we are in the new trend under the economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis , the strong promotion of digitalization, the decarbonization, the change and diversification of people’s values, and the emphasis on SDGs and a symbiotic society.
We are working for the growth and acceleration of the digital infrastructure field, which is the backbone of the promotion of the digital field. Currently, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Deep learning are the must for digital field. However digital infrastructure has not been established yet to prepare for HPC (High Performance Computing) which is necessary for these two tech. The overall digital infrastructure, including high-performance data centers, edge data centers, and communication networks and base stations, needs to be established as soon as possible. Approximately 80% of Japanese data centers are concentrated in the Kanto and Kansai area from latency and access point of view. It is a problem from a BCP perspective. In addition more than 40% of existing data centers are more than 20 years old. Furthermore low-power data centers (2 kVA/rack or less), which cannot afford to deal with huge amount of data transaction for such as AI (these are at least 6 kVA/rack). kVA/rack or more), account for more than 60% out of all data centers. And the most important point is huge amount of money is required to establish digital infrastructure. It is said that it costs more than 3 million yen per “tsubo” for total floor space to build a new data center. Its cost is about three times as much as that of a popular office building. For example, the cost of a data center with more than 1,000 racks is 10 billion yen or more. It is not easy to decide this investment by considering the size of it. From this point of view, only a few large carriers and system integrators with strong financial background can build a data center in Japan. In order to overcome this issue, we strongly recommend the liquidation of real estate investment funds (off-balance sheet investment) with asset management services. In other words, by the separation of ownership and management, we can accelerate the investment in the digital infrastructure field. At the same time, it is necessary not only to promote investment, but also to give due consideration to the trend toward decarbonization. This means that investments in digital infrastructure must be positioned as ESG investments.
We would like to contribute to the establishment of Japanese next-generation digital infrastructure and economic development by promoting the investment to the Digital Infrastructure in Japan through our asset management service. Because we want to continue to be a essential company in digital infrastructure.
Wishing that we can make good relationship with stakeholders by getting their understanding and sympathy to our vision.
May 2022
Masayoshi Kosugi
Representative Director
Digital Infrastructure Lab, Inc.
2022.06.24
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