Asia-focused hyperscale data center company AirTrunk has broken ground on the second phase of its TOK2 data center in Tokyo, Japan.

Work on the second phase commences only three months after breaking ground on the first in November 2022, and will bring the data center closer to its ultimate goal of a capacity of over 110MW. According to the company, the new phase will be scalable to approximately 50MW of capacity and will be custom-built to meet the needs of cloud providers.

The groundbreaking ceremony was attended by AirTrunk’s head of Japan, Norihiro Matsushita as well as senior executives from Daiwa House, Nihon Sekkei, and Obayashi, all of which are partnering on the construction.

In a LinkedIn post, AirTrunk said that the ceremony had been a ‘traditional Jichinsai groundbreaking ceremony’ to purify the ground and ensure safe construction. This involves a physical breaking of the ground in which the most important representatives will cut grass with a sickle, remove rocks with a hoe and dig into the ground with a spade.

First announced back in May 2022, TOK2 spreads across 4.6 hectares of land and has a PUE of 1.15 as part of its green loan from Japan’s Green Financing Framework.

In its first phase, AirTrunk’s TOK 2 data center had ~30MW of capacity. Once TOK2 is completed, AirTrunk will host over 410MW of capacity between its West Tokyo, TOK2, and East Tokyo, TOK1, facilities. The first 30MW phase of the TOK1 campus opened in November 2021.

TOK2 is the company’s eighth data center, joining those already hosted in Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, all of which combined will have 1.2GW of capacity at full build-out.

Last month, the company announced plans to develop a 150MW campus in Johor, Malaysia. Construction will commence shortly and is due for completion in 2024.