STTGDC secures $590m green loan for Tokyo data center campus

STTGDC has secured a JPY93 billion ($589.9 million) green loan to fund its Tokyo data center campus, the company announced this week. The facility finances the fit-out and subsequent operation of STTGDC TYO1 and STTGDC TYO2, the two buildings at its 70MW campus in Inzai City, Japan.

The loan follows the Green Loan Principles, a framework tying debt terms to environmental criteria. Those criteria include green building certification and energy-efficiency requirements. The company did not disclose the margin, tenor, or pricing of the facility. It also did not specify which certification standards the buildings must meet.

What did the executives say?

Group CFO Nelson Lim framed the deal as both capital and validation. "This financing reflects the strength of our Japan platform and the confidence of our banking partners in the quality and long-term potential of the Tokyo campus," Lim said. "It provides the capital foundation to advance the campus while maintaining a disciplined approach to growth. Importantly, the green-loan structure aligns our financing strategy with the environmental performance of the assets we develop, reinforcing how sustainability is integrated into our capital allocation and investment decisions."

That is a long claim. Green loan terms reward verified environmental performance, but STTGDC has not yet published energy metrics for either building, so the sustainability alignment remains, for now, a structural commitment rather than a measured result.

Who arranged the financing?

Standard Chartered acted as Lead Coordinator. It was joined by Mizuho Bank, OCBC, Société Générale and UOB. Standard Chartered and Société Générale also served as Green Loan Coordinators, roles that cover verification of the loan's environmental structure.

Five banks across three currencies' home markets signal broad lender appetite for Japanese digital infrastructure debt. The release names no other facilities or future tranches.

How did the Tokyo campus come together?

The company, then known as STT GDC, first announced its Tokyo expansion in October 2021. It launched the 32MW Tokyo 1 facility in June 2025. Groundbreaking on Tokyo 2 followed in April 2024 — a timeline that puts construction of the second building ahead of the first building's operational launch by more than a year.

CEO Japan Kiyoshi Maeda positioned the campus against demand from cloud and AI workloads. "The Tokyo campus is central to our long-term commitment to Japan and strengthens our ability to support customers as their cloud, AI and digital infrastructure requirements grow," Maeda said. "Customers need infrastructure that can scale with their ambitions while delivering the resilience and efficiency required for mission-critical operations. Through STTGDC TYO1 and STTGDC TYO2, we are building that capacity in one of Japan's established data center markets and creating a strong platform for our continued growth in the country."

Demand claims in data center announcements rarely come with committed capacity figures. This one does not. The 70MW figure is designed capacity, not contracted load.

Who owns STTGDC?

Investment firm KKR and Singaporean telecoms operator Singtel fully acquired STT GDC in February from ST Telemedia. The company has since rebranded as STTGDC. The Tokyo green loan is the first disclosed financing since that change, and it arrived roughly eight months after the acquisition closed.