As tech companies invest heavily in big data centres to meet demand for cloud computing and AI, people in Tokyo’s greater metropolitan area are mounting opposition over concerns about about electricity shortages, heat islands and diminishing space and natural light, Japanese media report.
In the city of Hino, west of downtown Tokyo, a billboard announced the construction of three data centres, developed by Mitsui Fudosan, including a five-story, 72m-tall building scheduled for completion in 2031. It would be the tallest building in Hino.
That prompted a residents’ association to demand the project be paused until the plan conforms to a city ordinance limiting the height of apartment buildings to 25m.
Residents worry the facility would also consume vast amounts of electricity and generate significant levels of heat, the Kyodo news agency reports.
“They haven’t given us an acceptable explanation,” said the association’s head Eizo Tsutsumizaki, 71.
Kyodo reports that Mitsui Fudosan is now reconsidering the building’s height and says it also plans to build a new park and sidewalk on the site for the community.
In front of a station
To the east of Tokyo’s downtown, in Inzai, Chiba Prefecture, the city was inundated with calls in April about plans for a more-than-50m-tall data centre in a prime location in front of a station.
People worried it would add an overbearing structure to an area that already has more than a hundred data centres.
Kyodo reports that Inzai mayor Kengo Fujishiro wrote on social media: “This place is the centre of civic life. It is not an appropriate location for this facility.”
In Nagareyama, a city in the same prefecture, a 2022 plan to build a data centre had to be withdrawn because of local opposition.
In April, Tokyo’s Koto Ward started requiring data-centre developers to put up signs announcing construction earlier than previously, and to clearly indicate the location of heat-emitting outdoor units.
‘Anxiety is prevailing’
The Japan Data Centre Council notes the country’s catch-22: it has good infrastructure and stable politics, making it a prime location for digital infrastructure, but tech companies want to build near large cities.
“The only suitable sites are in Tokyo, Osaka, and their suburbs,” the council’s executive director Naohiro Masunaga told Kyodo.
“Right now, anxiety is prevailing,” he added. “It is important for business owners to disclose information and steadily work to build trust with the communities affected.”
Fumito Haga, manager of Fuji Chimera Research Institute, told Kyodo: “There is no doubt that the number of giant data centers will continue to increase.
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