Japan's $15B Chiba Project to Integrate AI and Behind-the-Meter Power:
Japanese energy developer JERA will work with digital equipment firm Dell Technologies and artificial intelligence cloud provider RHAELM to build out AI and behind-the-meter power infrastructure throughout Japan.
The collaboration begins in following up the collaboration already underway between JERA and AI cloud developer RHAELM on the $15 billion Chiba project. The anticipated 400-MW project will unite digital infrastructure through Dell Technologies and lean on JERA’s liquified natural gas (LNG) supply chain to fuel its Chiba Thermal Power Station.
Private equity giant Apollo Global Management will spearhead strategic financial investment in the RHAELM site. When completed, Chiba will be the largest combined power and AI computing site in Japan, according to reports.
“By bringing those capabilities together with Dell Technologies and RHAELM, we can help AI infrastructure come online faster with access to the large-scale, reliable energy it needs in a complex and fuel-constrained market like Japan, and create a model that can be deployed at scale across Japan and over time, potentially in other markets,” Yukio Kani, global CEO for JERA, said in a statement.
Texas-based Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell predicts some $4 trillion will be spent on AI infrastructure around the world by 2030. Most companies struggle not with AI ambition, but true, functional AI implementation, Dell has said in conferences and media events.
Dell plans to expand its Deskside Agentic AI model and work with NVIDIA in exponential scaling up workflows and supercomputing capacity. The nation of Japan’s leadership wants to partner with Dell and others on close to $140 billion in AI investment.
“Deploying AI infrastructure at national scale requires a foundation built for control, flexibility and growth from day one” Arthur Lewis, president of the infrastructure solutions group at Dell, said. “This collaboration with JERA and RHAELM is designed to deliver that foundation, creating the compute capacity Japan needs to develop and scale its own AI innovation.”
As the U.S. increases energy investment to encourage both utility-scale and behind-the-meter and microgrid power for AI data centers, the Asia Pacific also is committed to raising the stakes by 12 digits and more financially. South Korea, for instance, is cutting what is estimated as a $50 billion deal to secure LNG supply from Glenfarne’s Alaska LNG liquefaction and export terminal along the Pacific Coast.
Meanwhile, China is hoping to invest nearly $300 billion in AI data centers across the nation.
Behind-the-meter projects are essentially on-site power projects directly tied to the data center customer. These are considered “speed to power” moves which can leap past slower utility interconnection queues and force direct customer investment to avoid costly transmission and distribution projects impacting residential and other commercial customers.
Microgrids can be built and co-located as grid-tied or off-grid, but each has integrated multiple energy resources to provide resiliency and “island” in the event of utility outages.
About the Author
Rod Walton, Microgrid Knowledge Managing EditorRod Walton, Microgrid Knowledge Managing Editor
Managing Editor
For Microgrid Knowledge editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].
I’ve spent the last 18 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. I was an energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World before moving to business-to-business media at PennWell Publishing, which later became Clarion Events, where I covered the electric power industry. I joined Endeavor Business Media in November 2021 to help launch EnergyTech, one of the company’s newest media brands. I joined Microgrid Knowledge in July 2023.
I earned my Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. My career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World, all in Oklahoma . I have been married to Laura for the past 36-plus years and we have four children and one adorable granddaughter. We want the energy transition to make their lives better in the future.
Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech are focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.