Equinix Extends Digital Edge with New Data Centre in South Sydney

SYDNEY, Australia — February 26, 2019 — Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), the global interconnection and data centre company, today announced it is extending the digital edge with a new International Business Exchange^TM (IBX^®) data centre in Sydney, to be named SY5. The US$160 million (approximately A$224 million) first phase of the South Sydney facility, which is targeted to open in Q3 2019 and will offer an initial capacity of 1,825 cabinets, further solidifies Equinix’s market leadership in Australia. The new IBX will be the largest to date for Equinix in Australia with 9,225 cabinets when fully built.

In 2018, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian predicted Sydney will become Australia’s version of Silicon Valley. The density of carriers, cloud service providers (CSP) and subsea cables in South Sydney make it an important location for Equinix.

A recent study by Frost & Sullivan also revealed that enterprises in Australia have high awareness of edge computing architecture.¹ As the Australian market continues to advance year-on-year with growth in cloud computing, big data, IoT applications and analytics software, and with 5G going live this year, Equinix continues to expand its presence in Australia by bringing local and global businesses closer to the digital edge to support their digital transformation journeys.

Highlights / Key Facts

• The SY5 IBX will be located in Alexandria, about 2.5 miles (four kilometres) from Sydney’s central business district, and will host a total colocation space of more than 260,000 square feet (approximately 25,000 square metres) when fully built. When the facility opens, Equinix will have a national footprint of 16 IBX data centres across Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Canberra, Adelaide and Brisbane, with eight in Sydney.
• Equinix Sydney facilities enable companies to set up direct links to the continent’s two largest peering points along with direct access to: the trans-Pacific telecommunications cables network Southern Cross Cable Head; the PIPE Pacific Cable network that runs from Australia to Guam; the new submarine cable system Hawaiki that connects Australia with New Zealand, other Pacific Islands and the continental US; as well as the Australia Singapore Cable (ASC) between Australia and Singapore.
• The SY5 IBX will benefit from direct fibre cross connect capability between the SY1, SY2, SY3 and SY4 IBX data centres with the richest ecosystem of customers in Australia, including over 155 network service providers (NSP), 265 cloud and IT service providers, more than 75 financial services companies and over 55 content and digital media organisations. SY5 will be located adjacent to SY4 with direct physical access between the buildings via a secure link bridge, creating a physical campus extension between the sites.
• The SY5 IBX will also benefit from Equinix Metro Connect connectivity to the SY6 IBX in Silverwater, providing customers with the ability to support geographical diversity and redundancy as needed to support full business continuity within the Sydney basin.
• As part of Platform Equinix®, SY5 will offer a wide range of connectivity options, including Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric™ (ECX Fabric™), which allows businesses to set up on-demand and secure connections to over 130 service providers and more than 1,400 participants across all regions around the world. ECX Fabric provides the largest cloud on-ramp to more than 265 CSPs in Australia, including Alibaba, Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, SAP Cloud, Oracle, SoftLayer and other local providers.
• Equinix has been named Frost & Sullivan's 2018 Australia Data Centre Services Provider of the Year for its unmatched national footprint and robust interconnection services, creating tremendous values for its customers.
• Over the past three years, Equinix has invested more than $800 million to organically build and expand its presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Equinix currently has 40 IBX data centres across 12 markets in Asia-Pacific. This January, the company announced it is building its fourth IBX data centre in Singapore and entering a new market in Seoul, South Korea.
• Globally, IBX facilities are built on Platform Equinix, which is comprised of 200 IBX data centres across 52 markets and 24 countries, providing data centre and interconnection services for more than 9,800 of the world’s leading businesses.

Quotes

• Audrey William, Senior Fellow and Head of Research, Australia and New Zealand, ICT, Frost & Sullivan

"The rise in the uptake of technologies such as analytics, IoT, cloud and 5G coming to fruition in Australia are built to leverage digital edge interconnections. Customer expectations will be high in terms of immediate availability of services, data and information with low latency. Edge computing architecture represents this next phase of IT transformation, and Equinix is at the forefront of this opportunity."

• Samuel Lee, President, Equinix Asia-Pacific

“Equinix aims to provide the best possible support for our customers as they navigate digital transformation, which is forecast to contribute more than US$1 trillion (approximately A$1.4 trillion) to the Asia-Pacific GDP by 2021.² As a trusted advisor to our customers across the region, we are committed to expanding our platform and innovating new technologies to accelerate these digital transformation journeys. Following our announcement of new IBX data centres in Singapore and South Korea in January, we are thrilled to announce SY5 in Australia and further our reach across the country. I look forward to seeing Equinix continue to expand in Australia and lead the push towards a digital economy.”

• Jeremy Deutsch, Managing Director, Equinix Australia

“We’re thrilled to continue an exciting period of growth for Equinix globally with the addition of SY5 IBX in Sydney. Sitting on Platform Equinix, SY5 further enables us to offer scalable digital infrastructure and on-demand interconnection both in the local market and across the Asia-Pacific region via a single platform. Local businesses are increasingly functioning at the digital edge with interconnection. SY5 is a display of our commitment to meeting our customers’ needs, providing them with the ability to securely and directly connect their employees, partners and customers.”

Additional Resources

• Equinix Sydney data centres [website]
• Equinix SY5 IBX Specifications [website]
• From an idea to an innovation centre: an Australian story [blog]
• FrostIQ Report [analyst report]
• ECX Fabric Datasheet [website]
• Equinix Invests $85 Million to Build Fourth Data Centre in Singapore [press release]
• Equinix Expands its Global Footprint to South Korea with New Data Centre in Seoul [press release]

About Equinix 

Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX) connects the world’s leading businesses to their customers, employees and partners inside the most-interconnected data centres. In 52 markets across five continents, Equinix is where companies come together to realise new opportunities and accelerate their business, IT and cloud strategies. Equinix.com.au.

Forward-Looking Statements 

This press release contains forward-looking statements which are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations discussed in such forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, unanticipated costs or difficulties relating to the integration of companies or new ventures we have acquired or will acquire into the Equinix platform; unanticipated costs or difficulties relating to expansion into new markets; the challenges of acquiring, operating and constructing IBX data centres and developing, deploying and delivering Equinix services; a failure to receive significant revenue from customers in recently built out or acquired data centres; failure to complete any financing arrangements contemplated from time to time; competition from existing and new competitors; the ability to generate sufficient cash flow or otherwise obtain funds to repay new or outstanding indebtedness; the loss or decline in business from our key customers; and other risks described from time to time in Equinix filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular, see recent Equinix quarterly and annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies of which are available upon request from Equinix. Equinix does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.

¹ Frost & Sullivan’s Edge Computing Awareness Level – APAC, 2018  
² IDC’s Unlocking the Economic Impact of Digital Transformation in Asia Pacific, February 2018