Asia Focus — Decarbonize Energy Solutions
Asia FocusDecarbonize Energy Solutions

We Help Energy and Industrial Companies Turn Innovative Technologies into Real-World Decarbonization.

Decarbonizing industry across Japan and Asia requires accelerating the adoption of breakthrough technologies. Asia Focus makes it happen.

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Tokyo + Boston

Who we serve

  • Electric Power Utilities
  • Renewable Energy Investors
  • Data Center Operators, Developers
  • IT and System Integrators
  • Corporate Venture Capital
  • Engineering & Construction Companies

Our services

Startup & Tech Scouting

Identify and partner with breakthrough technology startups

Strategic Sales & Support

Go-to-market in Japan and Asia

GX/DX Business Transformation

Digitalization of energy systems & infrastructure

Global Innovation Tours

Curated tours of North American leading energy ecosystems

Affiliations

MIT Energy Initiative — Japan Representative Watt-Bit collaboration — TEPCO Power Grid × University of Tokyo EPRI DCFlex — Asia-Pacific outreach PAI — Power and AI Initiative at Harvard SEAS
Energy & AI NEXUS Software Intelligence · Grid-Responsive AI Infrastructure

The landscape

The grid is built for 40 years. AI outruns it every 6 to 8 months.

Four drivers shape the power system. A fifth cuts across them all.

Real-world drivers

Electrification

As transport, buildings, industry and computing electrify, demand grows rapidly and load profiles change.

Low-carbon power

Scale growth of zero and low-carbon power fast enough: renewables + storage, geothermal, nuclear, gas + CCS.

Grid resilience

Expand and modernize T&D, clear interconnection bottlenecks, built-in flexible load and secure energy access.

Social impact

Ensure community acceptance on land use, water, noise, and electricity costs to permit, finance, and construct AI data centers.

AI factories are today's data centers

Scaling AI data center infrastructure

AI factory challenges

Cross-cutting objectiveMaximize tokens per watt

1 MWAI racks, next-gen
800 V DCPower delivery redesigned
LiquidCooling goes mandatory
StorageBandwidth limits GPU utilization
6×Data center demand growing faster than the grid
18–24 moTo build a data center

The Solution

AI is the fastest-growing new load on the grid.

The fastest new capacity is the load you can call on.

Swipe sideways to see the full chart.

Phoenix, Arizona, 2025: a live AI cluster of 256 GPUs cut 25% for three hours at peak, with no loss of service. EPRI DCFlex field demonstration; Colangelo et al., arXiv:2507.00909.

  • 256 GPUs
  • −25% at system peak
  • 3 h held
  • 0 loss of service
Get the flexible-load briefing

Startups

From the University Lab to a Field Trial in Japan

We accelerate the deployment of breakthrough energy technologies in Japan and Asia.

Talk to us about Japan

Methodologies

for Corporate Innovation

  1. 1

    Introduce Innovation Hub

    Engage with innovation ecosystem stakeholders: universities, investors, startup community and public sector climate agencies.

  2. 2

    Promote Strategic Interests

    Position business expertise and breadth of customers to provide value to innovation ecosystem stakeholders.

  3. 3

    Position for Member Services

    Recommend partnership to incubator having startups aligned on vision, technology expertise and competitive strengths.

  4. 4

    Business Services (optional)

    Services from techno-economic assessment - to verifying market readiness - to custom-designed workshops - to in-depth due-diligence on target startups.

for Technology Startups

  1. 1

    Market Readiness

    Guidance on market landscape and drivers, regulations, early adopters companies.

  2. 2

    Pilot/PoC Matching

    Align to projects supported by public funding. In Japan METI and MOE and subagencies NEDO, JOGMEC plus progressive municipal governments.

  3. 3

    Sales & Marketing

    Sales of technical solution through managed PoC and technology evaluation to closure of license agreements.

  4. 4

    Business Services

    Lead sales activities, qualify new opportunities, develop strategic sales & service partners, setup local operation, hire initial employees.

Contact

Contact & briefing

From Future of the Grid 2026

Get the flexible-load briefing

The briefing from our booth: how AI data centers become grid resources, the Phoenix field results, and the DCFlex shared definition of flexibility.

By downloading, you agree Asia Focus may email you about related work. Unsubscribe anytime.

Talk to us

Utilities, data center operators, investors and startups — tell us what you are working on.

Team

Steven F. Thomas
Steven F. ThomasRepresentative Director · Tokyo + Boston
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Steven specializes in solar project finance, enterprise software, data analytics, distributed computing, IIOT systems to support corporate initiatives in digital transformation and business development in Japan and Southeast Asia. Education M.I.T. Graduate degrees in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science.

Sam Matsumoto
Sam MatsumotoSenior Director
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Sam, a veteran bi-language market entry professional who has supported over 100 companies formulate their business development strategies to enter Japan and Japanese companies to develop global partnerships. Sam is highly skilled at examining new technologies to identify the strategic value and design go-to-market plans to commercialize such technologies and services in Japan’s energy sector.

Sam has served as Executive Director at a major wholesale energy settlement company and Managing Director of a leading energy consulting services company in Japan, and held leadership roles for multiple demand response programs sponsored by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan. His expertise is in system design for wholesale energy procurement, demand response, integration of distributed energy resources, IOT applications, tele-communication systems and cybersecurity.

Track record

25-year track record driving market penetration and profitable revenue growth in Japan and Asia. Our expertise is bootstrapping innovative companies in new markets by identifying and developing early adopter partners and customers in renewable energy, infrastructure systems and software applications.

Industrial manufacturing

For Renewable Energy Company (REC Solar) negotiated the company’s first global OEM agreement with Panasonic Corp valued at US$ 180Million for the mass production of a customize designed solar module. Gross annual revenues to REC Solar averaged 28% of worldwide revenues over two years.

Solar power-plants

Developed 50MWs pipeline of bankable mega-scale solar power-plants from origination to financial closure. Secured initial equity from private equity, managed oversight of technical design, PPA & grid-interconnection applications and selection of EPC for power-plant design and construction.

Renewable energy project financing

Structured US$ 300M investment platform to permit and finance construction of portfolio of renewable energy projects through partnership with NTT Facilities, a leading engineering company, SunEdison and selected project developers.

Enterprise software license agreements

Closed US$ 20Million in licensing agreements and sourced US$ 15Million in investments from leading companies in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China and India.

Energy client and partner engagements
  • Senior Consultant for Business Model Transformation and Growth Strategies. Lead market assessment, business planning & implementation for the fastest growing US energy retailers entering Japan’s electricity market. Principal analyst and author of Japan Electricity Market Landscape Report, issued January 2015.
  • Principal Consultant to Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Open Innovation Initiative task to design a master plan to foster innovative new businesses and services to compete in Japan’s newly deregulated electricity market, estimate USD 75Billion.
  • Marketing Analyst for Kansai Electric Power System Solution Company. Provide implementation service to new energy supplier in Japan’s electricity system operated by the Organization of Cross Coordinating Transmission Operators (OCCTO).
  • Consulting & training to one of Asia’s largest electric utility to develop new business models, products and services target for a single-buyer market and plans to operate in partial deregulated market structure. Project planning and assessment are on-going
  • Led Japan market development for Enviva (EVA) the world’s largest supplier of wood pellets. Developed 430MWs pipeline of bankable, high-quality biomass projects. Company closed exclusive sourcing agreement with Mitsubishi Corporation and Kansai Electric Power mixed coal & biomass power-plants.
  • Senior Business Development Representative for Energy Services Group, the largest private-owned energy service company. Launched business services, including customer & sales management and load forecasting cloud platform implemented by three electric retailers, US, UK and Japan.
  • Lead Consultant for TEPCO’s Open Innovation team business plan to launch a subsidiary electric retailer to compete in the deregulated electricity market. Also, led business development and release for the company’s customer management services platform.
  • Corporate Training specialist for Japan market entry. Provide consulting services and training to new entrant energy companies for launch in Japan and across Asia. Training on power utility and software market landscape and guidelines for successful growth strategies.

Reference client and partner companies

  • REC Solar
  • Panasonic
  • SunEdison
  • NTT Facilities
  • ORIX
  • Shinsei Bank
  • Japan Asia Group
  • etop
  • Hitachi
  • Fujitsu
  • NEC
  • TEPCO
  • KS Solutions
  • Enviva
  • Energy Services Group (ESG)
  • Customized Energy Solutions
  • Skipping Stone
  • Innovate UK

Tokyo

Asia Focus G.K.
SN Building 8F
1-4-22 Kaigan, Minato-ku
Tokyo, Japan
Open in Google Maps

Boston

48 Meacham Rd
Somerville, MA 02144
USA

Email

info@asiafocus.biz

LinkedIn

linkedin.com/in/stevenapac