US alternative investment firm Blackstone intends to put $30bn into artificial intelligence (AI) data centres in Japan over the next three to five years.
Jonathan Gray, the firm’s president and COO, told Nikkei Asia that Blackstone has already built data centre capacity in Japan of more than 500MW.
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He said the group is now in talks to develop facilities with capacity above 1GW, which he described as comparable to the output of a nuclear reactor.
The investment plan comes after Blackstone in June unveiled its biggest Asia-focused private equity fund so far, raising $13.1bn.
Gray said Japan was expected to become as significant an investment destination as India for that vehicle.
He said the fund would focus on areas including advanced manufacturing, electrical components, robotics, defence, healthcare and technology.
Discussing the worldwide expansion of AI infrastructure, Gray dismissed suggestions that the sector could face overbuilding in computing capacity.
“There’s a lot of concern that there’s going to be a bubble in compute building. I actually think the risk is there’s a shortage”, he told the publication.
Gray also said Blackstone was working globally with Anthropic to support companies installing AI, and with Google to offer customers AI computing capacity.
According to him, those partnerships align with Blackstone’s effort to participate across the wider AI ecosystem.
On competition in AI chips, Gray said Nvidia may currently dominate the market, but he expects rivalry to increase.
“There’s going to be, we think, more than one player”, he said, citing Google and Amazon as possible competitors.
Gray also said AI could have a major effect on healthcare, particularly through advances in drug discovery and more personalised treatment.
At the same time, he warned that companies dependent on white-collar labour could face longer-term pressure.
Separately, Blackstone said it had limited some redemption requests in June for its main private credit retail fund.
Gray said he expects redemption activity to remain high in the short term, though he believes it will eventually return to more typical levels.
Blackstone is building data centre infrastructure in Japan with AirTrunk, the Australian company it bought in 2024.
