Digital Realty expands innovation lab into Singapore, Japan

Digital Realty has announced the expansion of its Innovation Lab network into Singapore and Japan, marking its first presence in Asia Pacific.

The new labs will provide real-world environments for testing AI and hybrid cloud solutions, supporting local and regional businesses.

The Singapore facility aims to serve as a digital innovation hub, while the Japan location, at the NRT12 data center in Tokyo, will feature infrastructure capable of supporting high-density AI workloads with liquid cooling.

Both locations are expected to be operational later this year.

The labs will enable companies to test performance, optimize configurations, and connect to cloud and network providers through Digital Realty’s ServiceFabric platform.

The company says these facilities will help reduce deployment complexity and accelerate AI infrastructure validation in the region.

🔗 Source: Digital Realty

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

The innovation labs are backed by a broad technology ecosystem

Digital Realty runs the labs with partners such as AMD, Cisco, and Lenovo 1.
The sites target high power and cooling needs. The Tokyo lab at Digital Realty’s NRT12 data center will include 20 racks with direct liquid cooling (DLC). Digital Realty says its Innovation Lab environments can support deployments of up to 150kW per cabinet for high-density AI and high-performance computing workloads 2.
The labs build on liquid cooling already in use across Digital Realty. Lenovo’s liquid cooling (Neptune) is integrated into more than half of Digital Realty’s data centers globally 3.

Data centers are shifting from real estate to reducing risk in AI adoption

The labs reduce deployment risk for AI and hybrid cloud setups by giving companies a place to test, validate, and tune performance and configurations under real-world conditions 1.
The approach pushes operators beyond space and power into solution platforms that help move projects from proof-of-concept to production 1.
Shared access to AI-ready infrastructure can widen availability for firms that cannot build specialized, liquid-cooled data centers on their own 3.