Digital Realty Opens Global AI Labs to De-Risk Enterprise Adoption

AUSTIN, TX – February 25, 2026 – Digital Realty, the world’s largest data center provider, today announced a significant international expansion of its Digital Realty Innovation Lab (DRIL) network, launching new facilities in Singapore, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The move marks the first extension of the program into Asia Pacific and Europe, aiming to provide enterprises with a critical proving ground to test and validate complex Artificial Intelligence (AI) and hybrid cloud solutions before committing to full-scale production.

Following the successful launch of its inaugural lab in Northern Virginia in 2025, the company is responding to intense demand from global customers grappling with the transition from AI experimentation to enterprise-wide implementation. The new labs, expected to be operational this year, will offer fully supported, real-world environments where businesses can test performance, optimize configurations, and ultimately de-risk their technology investments in a landscape fraught with complexity.

“Sustaining rapidly expanding digital economies requires innovation ecosystems built on infrastructure that is not only AI-ready, but also efficient, resilient, and trusted,” said Serene Nah, Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific at Digital Realty. “Bringing this capability to Singapore and Japan reflects the digital maturity of these markets and their critical role in shaping the region's long-term digital competitiveness.”

The AI Sandbox: Bridging the Gap from Pilot to Production

While enterprise spending on AI is projected to reach $2.52 trillion in 2026, a significant portion of this investment remains locked in pilot projects. Many organizations struggle to move forward due to the immense technical challenges, including unforeseen costs, security vulnerabilities, and the sheer difficulty of integrating new AI workloads with legacy systems. The DRIL network is designed to directly address this critical barrier by providing a 'sandbox' environment where AI and hybrid cloud architectures can be pushed to their limits without impacting live operations.

In these labs, customers and partners like AMD, Cisco, and Lenovo can bring their own workloads or use pre-configured infrastructure to model real-world scenarios. This includes testing latency across different geographic locations, validating complex hybrid cloud integrations, and fine-tuning energy consumption. For many businesses, this pre-deployment validation is the missing link needed to build a confident business case for AI.

“European AI adoption is expected to grow rapidly, and London sits at the center of that growth,” noted Séamus Dunne, Managing Director for UK & Ireland. “Launching the Digital Realty Innovation Lab in London gives enterprises and partners a real-world environment to validate AI and hybrid cloud architectures before rolling them out across live environments. It’s a critical step in helping organizations deploy next-generation infrastructure faster, and with greater confidence.”

A Strategic Bet on Global Innovation Hubs

Digital Realty's choice of Singapore, Japan, and the UK is a strategic move targeting epicenters of technological growth, each with unique drivers and challenges. Singapore’s government is aggressively promoting AI adoption to fuel its digital economy, which already accounts for nearly 19% of its GDP. However, local businesses face significant hurdles with hybrid cloud complexity and data sovereignty compliance. The Singapore DRIL will serve as a central hub for the region, connecting local enterprises with global technology providers.

In Japan, the government plans to invest over 10 trillion yen in its semiconductor and AI sectors by 2030. Yet, the country faces a critical infrastructure bottleneck, with data centers heavily concentrated in Tokyo and Osaka, straining power grids. The new DRIL, located at the NRT12 data center in Greater Tokyo, directly confronts this issue. It will feature 20 racks with advanced direct liquid cooling (DLC) capabilities, specifically designed to handle the extreme power densities of modern AI hardware in a more efficient and sustainable manner.

The UK AI sector, now home to over 5,800 companies, is forecast to reach a market size of $21.5 billion by 2026. However, adoption is uneven, with 71% of organizations citing legacy infrastructure as a major hindrance to innovation. The London-based DRIL will provide a much-needed local resource for UK businesses to test and modernize their infrastructure without the risk of a full-scale overhaul.

The Technical Backbone for Next-Generation AI

Beyond providing physical space, the DRILs offer a suite of advanced technical capabilities essential for modern AI. The core challenge with AI infrastructure is managing the immense power consumption and heat generated by GPUs. Traditional air cooling, which struggles beyond 20kW per cabinet, is no longer viable. The labs are built to support high-density deployments of up to 150kW per cabinet by leveraging technologies like direct liquid cooling. This allows for a five-fold increase in compute density, enabling companies to do more with a smaller footprint while improving energy efficiency.

This high-density infrastructure is integrated with Digital Realty’s global interconnection platforms. ServiceFabric®, the company's orchestration platform, allows customers to establish secure, on-demand connections to a vast ecosystem of over 200 cloud on-ramps and network providers. This is crucial for hybrid cloud strategies, enabling low-latency data flow between private infrastructure and public clouds.

Layered on top is the Private AI Exchange (AIPx), a platform designed to solve the 'Data Gravity' problem—the challenge of moving massive datasets. Instead of moving data to the AI, AIPx enables businesses to bring AI models and compute resources directly to where their data resides. This open ecosystem provides private, high-speed connectivity to leading AI platforms, ensuring the security and performance required for production-grade AI applications.

Navigating a Competitive Landscape

Digital Realty's expansion comes as the entire data center industry pivots to meet the demands of the AI era. Competitors are making similar moves, with Equinix launching its own AI Solutions Labs across 20 global locations and specialized 'AI Hyperscalers' like CoreWeave and Nscale investing billions in purpose-built, liquid-cooled facilities in the UK and Europe. In Singapore, Singtel’s Nxera recently launched DC Tuas, a 58 MW facility billed as the nation’s most powerful AI-ready data center.

In this competitive field, Digital Realty’s strategy hinges on the integration of its vast global footprint—over 300 facilities across 30+ countries—with its advanced platform capabilities. By combining high-density colocation with the powerful orchestration of ServiceFabric® and the ecosystem-centric approach of AIPx, the company is offering more than just infrastructure; it is providing a comprehensive, de-risked pathway for enterprises to harness the transformative power of artificial intelligence.