To support India’s growing digital economy, which is expected to reach $1 trillion by 20261, Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), the world’s digital infrastructure company ®, today announced an investment of $42 million for its fourth International Business Exchange® (IBX®) data center 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 leading global commercial real estate and investment management company, the Indian data center 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 center and interconnection services among businesses.
Manoj Paul, Managing Director, Equinix India commented, “The increased digitalization of the economy is constantly driving the need for data center 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 center sites of MB1 and MB2. Scheduled to open in Q4 2023 (subject to regulatory approvals), the first 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 centers across 71 metros, providing digital infrastructure for more than 10,000 of the world’s leading businesses. In Asia-Pacific, Equinix currently operates 52 data centers 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 centers in Mumbai, named MB1 and MB2. The two data centers are home to the digital infrastructure of more than 300 international and local companies, including access to the world’s leading 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 quickly 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 US$86 million to build its third data center in Mumbai, called MB3.
