Equinix to build out hyperscale data centers across 32 facilities
Under the terms of the JV agreements, GIC will own an 80% equity interest in the future joint ventures and Equinix will own the remaining 20% equity interest.
Equinix has announced limited liability partnerships with GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, in order to grow the xScaleTM data center portfolio to greater than $6.9 billion across 32 facilities globally.
It is expected that the xScale portfolio of 32 facilities will provide more than 600 megawatts (MW) of power capacity when fully built out. Equinix’s long-term goal of using 100% clean and renewable energy for its global platform has resulted in significant increases in renewable energy coverage globally.
xScale data centers add to Equinix’s global platform of more than 220 International Business Exchange data centers. After deal closing and buildout, the xScale data center portfolio will span three regions:
Europe: Dublin (three xScale data centers), Frankfurt (five xScale data centers), Helsinki (one xScale data center), London (two xScale data centers), Madrid (two xScale data centers), Milan (one xScale data center), Paris (four xScale data centers) and Warsaw (one xScale data center)
Asia-Pacific: Osaka (three xScale data centers) and Tokyo (three xScale data centers)
Americas: Mexico City (one xScale data center) and São Paulo (three xScale data centers)
Charles Meyers, Chief Executive Officer of Equinix, said: “For years, the world’s largest cloud service providers, including Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, have partnered with Equinix to leverage its global platform of more than 220 data centers to directly connect to their strategic business partners and customers.
“With our xScale program, these hyperscalers can continue to grow at Equinix while in close proximity to an ecosystem of 10,000 customers. The joint venture arrangement of xScale enables these large deployments to be structured in an off-balance sheet model that aims to preserve capital for investment in our traditional retail data center and digital infrastructure business and maintain our strategic and financial flexibility.”
xScale data centers cater to hyperscale companies who can add core deployments to their existing access point footprints at Equinix and immediately gain access to 63 global metros and direct interconnection.
The ecosystem of nearly 10,000 enterprises and other companies currently operating at Equinix benefit from increased opportunities to directly connect and operate in proximity to the largest global cloud operators.
All xScale data centers will be LEED certified (or regional equivalent certification).
Jabez Tan, Head of Research, Structure Research, commented: “By building upon the xScale portfolio, Equinix is well-positioned to further accelerate the adoption of hybrid and multicloud as the IT architecture of choice for today’s businesses, while meeting hyperscalers’ needs for operational reliability, global reach and interconnectivity to rich ecosystems that are critical to serving their customers worldwide.”
The JV projects in today’s announcement are expected to close in several waves over the course of 2021, pending regulatory approval and other closing conditions.
Under the terms of the JV agreements, GIC will own an 80% equity interest in the future joint ventures and Equinix will own the remaining 20% equity interest.
Equinix has recently expanded access to Microsoft Azure as the cloud platform has become one of the favorite options for businesses looking to migrate strategic legacy applications to the cloud.
