"Japan Is a Key Market for AI Infrastructure": Blackstone Bets 46 Trillion Won

[Financial News, Tokyo = Seo Hye-jin] Blackstone, one of the world's largest alternative asset managers, is making a major investment in Japan's artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure market. The U.S. firm plans to invest $30 billion, or about 46 trillion won, in data center development in Japan over the next three to five years, signaling a full-scale push to secure key infrastructure for the AI era.
Jonathan Gray, Blackstone's president and chief operating officer, said in an interview with Nikkei, Inc. on the 24th that the company plans to invest $30 billion in its Japan data center business over the next three to five years. He added that Blackstone aims to capture surging demand for data processing driven by the spread of AI.
Blackstone is expanding its Japan business around Airtrunk, the Australian data center specialist it acquired last year. Its current development pipeline in Japan totals about 500 megawatts (MW), and the company is also reportedly considering new projects exceeding 1 gigawatt (GW), roughly the scale of one nuclear power plant.
The company is also stepping up investment across the broader AI ecosystem. Blackstone has recently been working with U.S. AI startup Anthropic on a business to support enterprise AI adoption, while also running a project with Google to provide computing resources based on AI chips.
Gray described this as "an example of Blackstone building a platform that spans the entire AI ecosystem."
He also offered an optimistic outlook for the AI chip market. While NVIDIA effectively dominates the market now, he expects big tech companies such as Google and Amazon.com, Inc. to emerge as competitors in the future.
On concerns about overheating in AI investment, he said, "If this were a baseball game, we're only in the first or second inning," adding that "the greater risk is a shortage of computing resources rather than a bubble."
He identified healthcare as the sector that will see the biggest changes from AI. "Drug development and patient-specific treatment will improve significantly," he said, predicting that "AI will transform the paradigm of the medical industry."
By contrast, he said white-collar industries such as law, software, information services and consulting are likely to face direct effects from AI. Gray said, "The areas truly exposed to risk are white-collar businesses," adding that "some industries may see valuations decline in the short term."
Still, he emphasized that "what matters is adapting to change and becoming a winner in the new environment," and that "companies must embrace business model shifts suited to the AI era."
Blackstone also plans to expand investment in Japan's mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market. The company intends to target the Japanese market using its $13.1 billion Asia fund, which was raised this month.
Gray said, "Japan, along with India, is one of the most important investment markets in Asia," adding that the firm sees promise not only in healthcare and technology, but also in advanced manufacturing, electrical and electronics, robotics and defense.
Meanwhile, Blackstone said in response to its recent decision to restrict some redemptions from its private credit fund for retail investors that "redemption requests will remain elevated in the short term, but they will stabilize over time," and that "ultimately, investment performance will determine market trust."

sjmary@fnnews.com Seo Hye-jin Reporter