Powering Mexico’s Digital Future with State-of-the-Art Technology Infrastructure

As digital transformation in Mexico accelerates and companies continue exploring opportunities with AI, there’s a growing need for critical IT infrastructure to power the country’s digital economy. Mexico is experiencing uninterrupted digitalization across virtually every economic sector, necessitating reliable data center infrastructure and unprecedented high-speed connectivity.

Just like in other parts of the world, many of the prevalent emerging technology use cases in Mexico require compute infrastructure in edge locations, closer to end users and data sources. Whether you’re delivering real-time personalized experiences to retail customers, implementing predictive maintenance on manufacturing equipment or deploying an AI-powered chatbot to support banking customers, having infrastructure in the right locations, supported by robust connectivity, is crucial.

Because of its geographic location, Mexico is quickly becoming a major digital hub for Latin America. Northern Mexico, in particular, is a fast-growing data center market that plays an increasingly important role connecting businesses in Mexico to the United States and the rest of the world. In the coming years, it will be a crucial enabler of Mexico’s economic growth and global interconnectivity.

Multicloud and AI are accelerating digital infrastructure expansion in Mexico

While cloud adoption in Mexico is nothing new, organizations based here are continuing to build out hybrid multicloud strategies that support modern business requirements. Today, everyone is talking about AI, and as companies in Mexico endeavor into AI, they undoubtedly need to connect with more clouds, networks, AI providers and business partners. They’re looking not only for places to put new AI infrastructure but also for low-latency connectivity into the United States and other parts of the world. As the AI market grows in the region, Mexico has the potential to become a hub for AI in Latin America.

Hyperscale clouds have recognized this trend, and many of the largest cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud, have recently launched cloud regions in Mexico to support the country’s need for cloud services.

From an enterprise perspective, multivendor connectivity has become a must. AI and emerging technologies require unprecedented interconnectivity between private, enterprise-owned infrastructure and a proliferation of public clouds and services. That connectivity must be fast, reliable and globally integrated. But hybrid multicloud networking can also get complex, and companies are looking for ways to simplify multicloud connectivity while reducing costs and minimizing inflexible CAPEX-based investments. These requirements are shaping the fast-evolving data center market in Mexico today.

The rise of northern Mexico as an interconnection hub

Central Mexico serves as the country’s primary data center market thanks to the strong network backbone in the region and the presence of large enterprises as well as major financial, governmental and academic institutions in the nation’s capital and largest city.

However, several trends have led to the emergence of northern Mexico as the second largest market. There’s a growing presence of major international companies in the north, from manufacturing and logistics companies to financial institutions, retailers and more. This includes automotive giants like General Motors, Ford and Volkswagen Group; aerospace firms like Bombardier and Honeywell; and medical device manufacturers like Medtronic and Boston Scientific.

Major Mexican companies with an international footprint also have a presence in the north, including Fomento Económico Mexicano (FEMSA) and Arca Continental (both of which bottle Coca-Cola), the global building materials company Cemex, and the automotive industry solutions provider Nemak, to name a few. As the adoption of digital technology grows in the region, data centers in northern Mexico often serve as a backup location for organizations that have primary infrastructure in Mexico City or Querétaro.

Because of supply chain issues, geopolitical challenges, the rising costs to ship goods and pressure to deliver products and services faster, many companies based in other parts of the world are relocating their manufacturing closer to their end customers—a trend known as nearshoring. It’s becoming more common, especially for businesses in industries like automotive, manufacturing and electrical parts, to move their manufacturing from Asia to northern Mexico, which connects them to the rest of North America. Nearshoring is beneficial to the Mexican economy, and it’s driving the need for more infrastructure in the region.

Monterrey, thanks to its proximity to the U.S. border, has a significant geographic advantage in hosting this much-needed infrastructure. A lot of network service providers have a presence in the Monterrey area for providing connectivity into the United States through Dallas and Houston, and into the rest of Mexico, including Mexico City and Querétaro. This prime location between North America and Latin America is also why a growing number of clouds and content service providers are looking to deploy infrastructure in Monterrey.

Colocation data centers offer unique connectivity advantages

As organizations mature in their digital transformation and AI adoption increases, there’s unprecedented demand for data center infrastructure in northern Mexico. Colocation facilities are uniquely equipped to fill these infrastructure gaps and deliver value-adding services.

Colocation providers are well known for providing data center space, power and cooling, enabling organizations to deploy highly reliable infrastructure without having to invest a lot of time and money in building new facilities themselves. By taking advantage of colocation, companies can eliminate heavy capital investment and instead use more predictable, flexible OPEX-based pricing. They can also take advantage of skilled infrastructure talent and reduce the infrastructure management burden on their IT teams.

But even more than that, colocation facilities are differentiated by their ability to meet the connectivity challenges of modern enterprises. As vendor-neutral interconnection hubs, colocation data centers offer abundant connectivity opportunities through cloud on-ramps, cross connects and virtual interconnection services. In a colocation facility, an enterprise can easily connect to multiple clouds, SaaS providers, network service providers and business partners, all in one place.

Equinix launches cutting-edge data center in Monterrey

To meet the need for modern data center infrastructure in northern Mexico, Equinix recently launched a new flagship facility in Monterrey, Equinix MO2. With more than 30,000 square feet of colocation space, MO2 greatly expands our capacity to accelerate highly connected infrastructure deployments for organizations looking to expand in the Monterrey area.

Organizations can deploy infrastructure in vendor-neutral Equinix facilities like MO2 as part of a broader hybrid multicloud strategy, leveraging Equinix Fabric® private interconnection for connectivity to clouds and other essential vendors. In fact, Equinix offers 220+ cloud on-ramps across our global footprint, more than any other provider. And it doesn’t stop there. With ~3,000 clouds and IT services, 2,000+ network services, ~400 content and digital media providers, and 4,900+ enterprises on our platform, we help organizations connect to everything they need to succeed.

MO2 is also AI ready, designed to meet the power and cooling requirements of high-density AI infrastructure deployments, as well as the dynamic connectivity AI demands. With this new, purpose-built digital infrastructure, Equinix is committed to facilitating Mexico’s digital future and its important role on the world stage.

So, whether you’re taking the next step in your digital transformation, implementing a nearshoring strategy in northern Mexico to support global expansion, or endeavoring into AI for the first time, Equinix can help.

Learn more about our Monterrey data centers, and explore how Equinix is simplifying multicloud networking in the age of AI by downloading our hybrid multicloud networking strategy guide.