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Equinix and GIC to add US$3.9 billion to expand xScale Data Centre Program

Equinix and GIC to add US$3.9 billion to expand xScale Data Centre Program

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Equinix has announced agreements for additional joint ventures in the form of limited liability partnerships with GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, which when closed and built out will bring the xScaledata centre portfolio to greater than US$6.9 billion across 32 facilities globally.

xScale data centres add to Equinix’s global platform of more than 220 International Business Exchange (IBX) data centres by serving the unique core workload deployment needs of a targeted group of hyperscale companies, including the world’s largest cloud service providers. After deal closing and buildout, the xScale data centre portfolio will span three regions:

  • Europe: Dublin (three xScale data centres), Frankfurt (five xScale data centres), Helsinki (one xScale data centre), London (two xScale data centres), Madrid (two xScale data centres), Milan (one xScale data centre), Paris (four xScale data centres) and Warsaw (one xScale data centre).
  • Asia-Pacific: Osaka (three xScale data centres) and Tokyo (three xScale data centres).
  • Americas: Mexico City (one xScale data centre) and São Paulo (three xScale data centres).
  • Three additional sites are expected to be announced at a future date.

Charles Meyers, CEO 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 centres 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 centre and digital infrastructure business and maintain our strategic and financial flexibility.”

Highlights

  • Equinix is a leader in data centre sustainability and is greening the supply chains of its customers. 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. Equinix has continued to make advancements in the way it designs, builds and operates its data centres with high energy-efficiency standards and all xScale data centres will be LEED certified (or regional equivalent certification).
  • 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.

Jabez Tan, Head of Research, Structure Research, said: “By building upon the xScale portfolio, Equinix is well-positioned to further accelerate the adoption of hybrid and multi-cloud 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.”

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