Goodman Group faces local opposition at its 3 trillion yen ($20 billion) data center campus in Tsukuba, Japan. The pushback follows the cancellation of a similar project in Sydney.

The 45-hectare site in Ibaraki Prefecture will reach an eventual capacity of 1 gigawatt. It ranks among the largest foreign-backed digital infrastructure projects in the country.

Work began earlier this year on the initial 50-megawatt phase in the Oho district, an area of about 20,000 residents roughly 50 kilometers northeast of Tokyo. The site sits next to a residential neighborhood, a hospital and a nursing home. Heavy construction machinery arrived on location in February. Residents say that gave them their first real indication of the project’s scale.

Neighborhood representatives say initial planning filings obscured the data facility. Municipal documents in 2023 originally described the project as a logistics warehouse. References to a data center appeared later in the planning process.

Hiroyuki Yanagimachi, who formed a residents group to challenge the project, gathered roughly 800 signatures demanding a public town hall. His group sent two formal letters to Goodman requesting an open session. Yanagimachi said the group will protest at the Tsukuba site and outside the developer’s Tokyo office if open talks do not happen.

Goodman said in a statement that its door remains open to meet the neighborhood association head. It plans to hold an information meeting after consulting with local authorities. The developer previously hosted two invitation-only evening dinners in August for several dozen attendees at a local restaurant. Participants said the format felt like promotional hospitality rather than an open public forum.

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