Today,
Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq:
EQIX), the global interconnection and
data center company, today announced it will build a new International Business Exchange (IBX) data center at its
London Slough campus. The data center – called LD7 – will provide interconnection and colocation to businesses to support their IT transformation initiatives and adoption of the cloud while supporting the digital infrastructure of the UK. The data center will cost approximately $120M (£90M) and scheduled to open Q2 2019.
The new data center will bring the company's UK portfolio to 12 IBXs and supports increasing demand for interconnection bandwidth capacity from UK enterprises looking to gain a competitive advantage in the digital economy. These data centers are built on Platform Equinix which is comprised of 200 data centers in 52 markets globally. Including current expansion projects, Equinix will have invested over $1.2 billion to build and expand its presence in the London metro area.
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The new $120M (£90M GBP) data center forms part of a total $387M (£295M GBP) investment in the UK's digital economy from Equinix throughout 2018/19. This includes $108M (£82M GBP) in expansion to Equinix's LD10 data center, $120M (£94M GBP) in expansion at its LD9 data center and $39M (£29M GBP) expansion of its LD4 data center. The investment in expansions at LD9 and LD10 include the development of dedicated space for hyperscale infrastructure to meet demand from cloud service provider customers.
Earlier this year the company also announced that it would expand its LD4 data center due to continued growth of the world's largest multi-asset class
electronic trading ecosystem which consists of a robust collection of interconnected execution venues, trading platforms, market data vendors, service providers, buy-side firms, and sell-side firms.
The new LD7 data center will enable customers to interconnect securely with 1,000+ businesses in London including leading capital markets participants, insurers and electronic payments firms, as well as 200+ network service providers and 275+ cloud and IT service providers. LD7 will add 1,750 cabinets in its initial phase and expand to 2,650 cabinets at full build.
This sizeable investment is an indicator of Equinix's confidence in the future of London as Europe's major financial hub and one of the world's greatest commercial cities, regardless of the outcome of the ongoing negotiations around the UK's departure from the European Union. The investment has been acknowledged by the UK Government as a positive contribution to the UK's continued success in global business.
As part of Equinix's commitment to its long-term goal of using 100% clean and renewable energy and lowering its carbon footprint for its global platform, LD7 has been designed to provide an energy-efficient foundation on which customers can accelerate their business in this era of digital transformation. As a result, the LD7 data center will be built to LEED gold certified standards.
Energy efficiency will be achieved at the site with the aid of an innovative chilled water system in combination with an Adiabatic heat rejection system. This will contribute to LD7 having lower energy consumption and a smaller carbon footprint than other facilities of its kind.
LD7 will also provide direct, secure and dynamic software-defined interconnection through the Equinix Cloud Exchange™ Fabric to over 1,300 businesses including some of the largest CSPs including Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Oracle Cloud. Customers can take advantage of scalability, agility and connectivity over a self-service portal or API and through a single port, can discover and reach the aggregation of companies and ecosystems at Equinix on demand, locally or across metros.
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The investment will support the rapidly increasing private exchange of data between businesses – also known as interconnection. According to Equinix's Global Interconnection Index Volume 2, Interconnection Bandwidth is expected to grow 48% per annum in Europe to reach 1,900+ Tbps by 2021, contributing to around 23% of Interconnection Bandwidth globally. With an average growth rate of 52%, London is set to contribute over 35% of Europe's growth, more than tripling its private data exchange between businesses from 195 Tbps to 681 Tbps. This means that despite Brexit, London is projected to have the largest volume of data privately flowing between businesses, more than any other market in Europe.
