Digital infrastructure company Equinix has announced its expansion into Chennai with what it describes as its first International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre, called CN1.
This facility, says Equinix, is designed to support the needs of enterprises and hyperscalers, including AI deployments, to help businesses capitalise on the digital opportunity in India. Equinix says CN1 will serve as a dynamic hub for startups, enterprises, and network and cloud service providers, among others.
With an initial investment of US$65 million, CN1 spreads over nearly six acres of land. It will be located in the SIPCOT (State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ltd) land in the Siruseri area.
The location is approximately 28 kilometres away from the bustling Central Business District, holding a key position near to anticipated submarine cable landing sites. This strategic location lays the groundwork for Equinix India’s expansion plans, enabling the extension of Platform Equinix (the company’s foundation for digital infrastructure) to a key metropolitan area in India.
Equinix CN1 is a four-storey building and will ultimately provide a total site capacity of 4,950 cabinets when fully built. Scheduled to open in Q4 2024, the first phase of CN1 will provide 850 cabinets.
It will also be connected to Equinix’s three existing data centres in Mumbai. As Manoj Paul, Managing Director, Equinix India, explains: "Equinix has the most hyperconnected data centre campus in Mumbai with the largest concentration of cloud on-ramps, telecom service providers, over-the-top (OTT) media service providers, internet exchanges and financial ecosystem. The addition of our Chennai data centre will further extend this ecosystem to customers in Chennai.”
Equinix says its facilities in India, including the upcoming facilities in Chennai and Mumbai, CN1 and MB3, are expected to be 100% covered by renewables.
