Goodman's empty sheds

Australia’s largest industrial property business, Goodman Group, has finally signed a data centre lease. This is no small thing for the $61 billion ASX giant, which has been hounded by investors for the better part of two years to do just that. Goodman started ramping up its data centre arm in financial 2023 and for all its claims about one of the biggest "power banks" in the world, there’s been little to show for it until now. 

The company told the market on Tuesday it had signed a 20-year commitment with an unnamed global AI giant to lease 50 megawatts of capacity from its gigantic site in Tokyo, Tsukuba Tech Central. 

That site, also known as TY005, is considered to be one of the most promising in Goodman's $11 billion data centre portfolio. It's supposed to eventually scale to 1 gigawatt across 10 sites at full completion but the build has been delayed. 

So far Goodman’s broken ground on the first, and newly leased, 50 megawatt shed but is yet to confirm a delivery timeline for the remaining 950 megawatts. According to people familiar with the site, Tokyo’s grid can only support about 200 megawatts, which means Goodman will need new approvals to build new power infrastructure for the rest. 

All of that is to say Goodman has leased 5 per cent of this huge capacity commitment and says it remains in "advanced discussions" with customers over the "next phases". Analysts have already moved to try and figure out what price an operator will pay Goodman for this 20-year contract since Goodman, of course, hasn't disclosed one.