Equinix expands footprint in Mumbai to address rising demand for digital infrastructure
Manoj Paul of Equinix
To support India’s growing digital economy, which is expected to reach [$1 trillion (€0.92 trillion)] by 20261, Equinix, Inc., a digital infrastructure company, announced an investment of [$42 million (€38.49 million)] for its fourth International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre in Mumbai, called MB4. The new facility will allow local and overseas businesses to expand their digital capability as a foundation to accelerate digital transformation in India.
According to JLL, a global commercial real estate and investment management company, the Indian data centre industry reached 637 MW as of H1 2022 and is expected to reach 1,318 MW by 2024.2 In addition, the Equinix Global Tech Trends Survey 2023 indicates that 85% of IT leaders surveyed in India plan to increase spending on interconnection in the next twelve months. The addition of MB4 will expand Equinix’s digital infrastructure capacity in India to address the rising demand for data centre and interconnection services among businesses.
Manoj Paul, managing director, Equinix India, comments “The increased digitalisation of the economy is constantly driving the need for data centre and interconnection services in India. The availability of MB4, expected in Q4 2023, will allow us to continue serving our customers’ needs in India, enabling them to leverage our interconnection platform for efficient connectivity to multiple cloud service providers, network service providers and other businesses. This will help existing and new customers accelerate their digital transformation journey.”
MB4 will offer expanded connectivity options to major telco networks along with Metro Connect availability to the highly connected Equinix data centre sites of MB1 and MB2. Scheduled to open in Q4 2023 (subject to regulatory approvals), the initial phase of MB4 will provide an initial capacity of 350 cabinets. When fully built out, the facility is expected to provide 700 cabinets.
Equinix operates 250 data centres across 71 metros, providing digital infrastructure for more than 10,000 of the world’s businesses. In Asia-Pacific, Equinix currently operates 52 data centres in key metros across Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea and Singapore. The company also recently announced its plans to enter Malaysia and Indonesia to support business expansions into these emerging markets in the region.
Equinix currently has two IBX data centres in Mumbai, named MB1 and MB2. The two data centres are home to the digital infrastructure of more than 300 international and local companies, including access to the cloud service providers Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud. They also host global networks, content delivery network providers, local carriers, more than 165 internet service providers (ISPs) and five internet exchanges. Businesses can use Platform Equinix to interconnect with these providers and their own global IBX deployments using on-demand, self-service connectivity.
In March 2022, Equinix announced its plan to enter the Chennai market with a land acquisition of over 5.5 acres. In June 2022, Equinix announced plans to expand its footprint with an investment of over [$86 million (€78.77 million)] to build its third data centre in Mumbai, called MB3.
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