Mubadala, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, is in talks to invest up to ¥1 trillion (about $6.3 billion, or AED 23 billion) in an AI data centre in Akita, northern Japan, that would become the country’s largest.
The 500-megawatt facility is expected to cost roughly ¥2 trillion (about $12.6 billion, or AED 46 billion) in total once suppliers and companies moving nearby are counted, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. Mubadala declined to comment.
The project is led by US AI startup BitGrid and Akita-based IT firm S2, according to Nikkei. The two plan a special purpose company to raise funds from overseas investors, with Mubadala as the anchor. Operations are targeted for the early 2030s, on an industrial site in northern Akita City; the prefecture will sell 31 hectares from the end of fiscal 2026, with the city adding 25 more in 2030.
Why Akita
Akita is known for its rice and its winters, not yet for its servers. What it has is power: more than 2 gigawatts of offshore wind planned across four sea areas, enough for about 1.5 million households, plus abundant water for cooling. Japan’s government is also designating the prefecture a priority investment zone, part of a plan for ¥32.7 trillion (about $206 billion) of public and private investment in strategic fields by fiscal 2035.
Why Abu Dhabi is buying
Abu Dhabi has been buying data centres the way other funds buy bonds. Last month MGX — the AI investment venture Mubadala runs with G42 — closed the $40 billion acquisition of Aligned Data Centers alongside BlackRock and the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership. Mubadala has previously backed Cologix and Princeton Digital Group, and participated in OpenAI’s $6.6 billion funding round.
There is a defensive element too. Bloomberg notes Japan is seen by investors as insulated from geopolitical tension, and with US–Iran tensions exposing Gulf data centres to missile risk, dispersing digital assets north fits the strategy. Akita offers something Gulf data centres cannot: distance.
What a Mubadala investment means for Abu Dhabi’s AI strategy
The UAE ambassador to Japan, Shihab Al-Fahim, plans to visit Akita this month to meet Governor Kenta Suzuki and Akita City Mayor Jun Numaya. “There are many success factors to push the plan forward,” he said, per Nikkei. “We want to deepen our cooperative relationship.”
Abu Dhabi has been here before. Under the US–UAE AI Acceleration Partnership, the emirate commits to invest a dollar in US AI infrastructure for every dollar spent on data centres in the Middle East. Japan is now on the same list, and UAE businesses that build, power or cool data centres are the ones most likely to follow the money.
Japan’s data centre race
Akita is one of several sites. SoftBank is building a 300MW facility in Tomakomai, Hokkaido, with a 250MW site planned in Sakai, Osaka; NTT Data has projects in Chiba and Tochigi; Microsoft has pledged $10 billion in Japan by 2029. If it lands, Mubadala’s stake would be the first time a Gulf sovereign fund anchors a Japanese data centre project of this scale.
Who is Mubadala?
Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, with roughly $385 billion in assets under management. It has become one of the world’s most active AI infrastructure investors, largely through MGX, its joint venture with G42.
Why was Akita chosen for the data centre?
Akita has more than 2GW of offshore wind planned across four sea areas, abundant water for cooling and priority investment zone status from Japan’s government. It is also a long way from Tokyo’s congested grid — and from Gulf missile range.
When will the data centre open?
Operations are targeted for the early 2030s. BitGrid first plans to run a 1.5MW pilot facility in Akita City by the end of 2027.
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