A key factor in my decision to join Equinix was because the company truly puts the customer at the center of all it does. This commitment has been clearly demonstrated with our hyperscale customers ̶ no company is better positioned from a global reach, interconnection choice or financial partnership perspective to help our largest customers scale globally more quickly and economically.
Hyperscale data centers are critical to the future of digital enterprises. And I believe our investment in Equinix xScale™ data centers on Platform Equinix® will accelerate enterprise adoption of hyperscale clouds to facilitate their successful digital transformations. As we head into 2021, our efforts are bearing fruit, and my enthusiasm is stronger than ever. Our investment at the high end of data center space and power requirements fits perfectly with our vision to be the world’s digital infrastructure company, creating a single platform that brings together and interconnects the foundational infrastructure and digital ecosystem businesses need to compete. It is truly an exciting time to be in service to our customers helping them achieve their business needs.
As digital transformation drives demand for localized digital services at the edge, private connectivity between enterprises and strategic cloud and network services has become the strategy of choice for most businesses. According to the Global Interconnection Index (GXI) Volume 4 report, a market study published by Equinix, between 2019 and 2023, installed interconnection bandwidth capacity is expected to achieve a 45% CAGR worldwide, with service providers experiencing a 5x increase, the highest rate among the industry players. We expect connectivity to cloud and IT providers to become the second-largest source of enterprise ecosystem interconnection by 2023, trailing only network providers. The GXI report also reveals that competitive pressures and external forces, such as COVID-19, have driven enterprises to accelerate their digital transformations, with a hybrid multicloud now becoming the standard approach to building infrastructure.
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How hyperscalers can build their digital infrastructure
These trends signify that cloud and other service providers must prepare now for ensuring bandwidth and fast response times in the face of extreme growth. As described in a previous blog, “Hyperscale vs. Colocation,” a hyperscale data center is a type of wholesale colocation data center engineered to meet the technical, operational and pricing requirements of hyperscalers, such as AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Alibaba Cloud, and a handful of others, that have massive space, power and cooling requirements and need to lease an entire floor of a building or an entire building.
Hyperscalers usually reach their customers by placing a network node in a proximate retail facility, such as an Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data center, which allows all the companies in that facility to connect to the hyperscaler’s services. This turned out to be a critical network design capability. The GXI report demonstrates that as the global pandemic struck, companies turned to the major cloud providers to help them rapidly scale their infrastructures to support applications such as remote work, telemedicine, streaming video and online collaboration tools.
Equinix’s approach to helping hyperscalers continue to build their digital infrastructures focuses on enhancing interconnection growth and scale and partner ecosystem and customer density. Today, Platform Equinix currently supports more than 9,500 customers in 63 markets in 26 countries on 5 continents.
Over the last two years, Equinix has committed more than $2 billion to develop and operate Equinix xScale data centers in Europe and Japan. In Europe, the 9.6 MW Paris xScale data center (PA9x) is fully sold out to a single tenant user. xScale facilities in London (LD11x) and Frankfurt (FR9x and FR11x) are under development and will total approximately 62 MW of capacity when fully built out. In Japan, xScale facilities in Tokyo (TY12x) and Osaka (OS2x) are also under a phased development. These facilities combined with the next facility in Tokyo (TY14x) will total approximately 138 MW of IT load when fully built out. In aggregate, Equinix has already sold out all of Phase 1 at TY12x and has sold out two-thirds of Phases 1 and 2 combined.
Why hyperscalers should be in Equinix xScale data centers
Adding these hyperscale data centers to our portfolio cements Equinix as a cornerstone of a growing cloud ecosystem and proximate access to customers and partners. By locating infrastructure in an Equinix xScale data center, hyperscalers gain high-speed, low-latency access to all the service providers and enterprises deployed in Equinix IBX data centers around the world via Equinix Fabric™ software-defined interconnection. This also enables the enterprises in IBX data centers to deploy their hybrid multicloud strategy across Platform Equinix by interconnecting to their cloud or SaaS provider of choice in minutes versus months. Further, Equinix Fabric allows enterprises to take advantage of the hyperscaler’s services to help them build their digital infrastructures while also gaining access to dense ecosystems of 1,800+ network service providers, 2,900+ cloud and IT service providers, and 600+ content and digital media service providers.
Equinix xScale data centers provide several additional advantages compared to existing wholesale data center operators. xScale data centers are engineered to meet the technical and operational requirements of core hyperscale workload deployments – while providing a world-class operating model that supports customers along their journey to hyperscale, with best-practice processes, reliability and services at a price point and with SLAs that are in line with their evolving requirements. xScale data centers also enable hyperscale companies to consolidate their core build-out and access point deployments with a single global provider to streamline and simplify rapid growth. Finally, xScale data centers offer access to Equinix’s comprehensive suite of interconnection and edge services, which increases the speed of connectivity to the hyperscalers’ existing and future enterprise customers.
Equinix’s commitment to sustainability across our entire portfolio is also important to many customers. We design, build and operate our data centers with high energy efficiency standards and a long-term goal of using 100% clean and renewable energy for our global platform. In addition, since Equinix xScale data center customers draw huge amounts of power and cooling, Equinix’s commitment to keeping Power Use Efficiency (PUE) as low as possible translates into lower cost of occupancy for customers.
With our continued investment in hyperscale data centers, Equinix has truly become the world’s digital infrastructure company ̶ powering hybrid multicloud architectures that drive digital leaders’ success and providing access to the world’s most comprehensive digital ecosystem.
For more information on Equinix xScale data centers, visit Equinix sales.
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Equinix Europe 2020: Hyperscale and Colocation Demand is Riding High
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