Global law firm Freshfields has advised Colt Data Centre Services (“Colt DCS”) on a joint venture with ESR to develop the first phase of a 130 MW hyperscale data centre site in Osaka, Japan. The first phase, comprising 65 MW, will be designed and built by the ESR–Colt DCS joint venture and operated by Colt DCS. Colt DCS is global provider of hyperscale, AI and large enterprise data centre solutions while ESR is an Asia-Pacific focused real asset owner and manager. The partnership brings together Colt DCS’ proven operational excellence and over 25 years of development experience in Japan with ESR’s strong in-market development expertise and supply chain partnerships to provide high-quality data centre solutions for customers. Our team advising on the transaction included partners Tomoko Nakajima and Simon Weller, counsel Daniel Boyle, senior associate Junya Suzuki and associate Kevin Fan. Regulatory advice was provided by partner Kaori Yamada, counsel Laurent Bougard and associate Hitoshi Nakajima. Tax advice was provided by partners Peter Clements and Claude Stansbury and senior associate Melissa Pear. IP and data privacy advice was provided by associate Harshavardan Ganesan.