Digital Realty is expanding its Digital Realty Innovation Lab (DRIL) network to Singapore and Japan as enterprises in Asia Pacific accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) deployments.
The new DRIL sites will provide live environments where customers and partners can test AI and hybrid cloud architectures before committing to production-scale systems. Both facilities are expected to be available for customers and partners this year.
The move marks Digital Realty’s first DRIL expansion into Asia Pacific. Launched in September 2025, its inaugural facility in Northern Virginia has hosted more than 120 enterprise visits.
The Singapore facility will serve as a hub for enterprises, partners and research institutions to develop and validate AI and hybrid cloud deployments locally.
In Japan, the lab will be located at Digital Realty’s NRT12 data centre in the Greater Tokyo area. It will include 20 racks equipped with direct liquid cooling to support advanced AI and high-performance computing workloads.
“Sustaining rapidly expanding digital economies requires innovation ecosystems built on infrastructure that is not only AI-ready, but also efficient, resilient, and trusted,” says Serene Nah, Digital Realty’s managing director and head of Asia Pacific, adding that demand for dedicated validation environments has grown since the US launch, particularly among enterprises in the region preparing large-scale AI rollouts.
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The facilities will allow customers to assess workload performance, optimise power and cooling configurations, and connect directly to cloud and network providers via ServiceFabric, Digital Realty’s interconnection platform. Enterprises can also orchestrate workloads across their Private AI Exchange (AIPx) to support distributed deployments.
Across the network, DRIL supports high-density AI and high-performance computing testing, including deployments of up to 150 kilowatts per cabinet, as well as energy and latency assessments.
The global DRIL network includes partners such as AMD, Cisco and Lenovo, as Digital Realty positions its facilities as infrastructure platforms for enterprise AI deployment rather than traditional colocation space.
