Equinix outlines sweeping global expansion plans

Data centre operator to spend nearly $2 billion (£1.54 billion) building 12 data centres and expanding 23 existing facilities

Equinix has detailed an extensive global expansion strategy for 2019, which includes plans to open 12 new data centres in major European and APAC metros.

The colocation giant has already opened data centres in Paris and Shanghai (PA8 and SH6) this year. PA8, Equinix’s eighth Paris metro data centre, opened in March and is currently 60 percent pre-leased. SH6 is Equinix’s largest Shanghai facility.

Over the course of 2019, Equinix also plans to open data centres in Helsinki, London, Sofia, Toyko, Melbourne, Seoul, Sydney, Warsaw, Hamburg and Singapore.

Where applicable, each facility will be directly connected to other Equinix IBX data centres within each metro via fibre links between the sites, Equinix said.

In addition, 23 of the company’s existing facilities in European, US and APAC metros will be expanded, taking the total planned non-recurring capital expenditure for the year to $1.730 to $1.920 billion (£1,331 to 1,477 billion). Equinix presently operates over 202 data centres in 24 countries and 52 metros.

Equinix dominates the $34 billion (£26 billion) colocation market, which is currently experiencing booming demand as major cloud providers seek to move closer to major business districts.

“As digital transformation is reshaping virtually every industry across the globe, companies are thinking differently about how they interact with every element of their supply chain, and a clear architecture of choice is emerging – one that is cloud-first, distributed and hybrid,” said Charles Meyers, Equinix CEO.

“To achieve this, their architecture needs to be deployed at the digital edge, where Equinix resides and continues to expand its unmatched global reach with the investments we are making in 2019 and beyond.”