Japan's TEPCO May Shed Data Center Holdings

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The lobby entrance to the massive At-Tokyo data center. (Photo by Alex Kane)

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) is evaluating a plan to sell its data center holdings, which include the one of the world's largest data centers and a minority stake in KDDI, the parent of the Telehouse chain.  The divestiture, which was reported by the Nikkei Shimbun newspaper, is part of TEPCO's effort to streamline its operations as it seeks to recover from the nuclear crisis at the company's Fukushima power plant.

TEPCO's data center assets include @Tokyo, a data center company that operates a massive 1.4 million square foot data center. @Tokyo was established as a data center business in June, 2000 with Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc., and INTEC Inc. as the main shareholders. The company operates four data centers in Tokyo.

Tokyo Electric also owns an 8 percent stake in KDDI, and is reported to be in talks about selling its stake to KDDI, according to Reuters.

TEPCO would not confirm the says the Nikkei Shibun report about its plans. "Under the policy of selling, in principle, any assets excluding those required for electric power supply, TEPCO has been considering streamlining of any assets including sale of real estate properties and stocks owned by TEPCO," the company said in a statement. "At this moment, however, we would like to decline comment on concrete matters."