Equinix makes $240M expansion to local data centres

Equinix has expanded two data centres in Australia in an initiative valued at $240 million, adding more than 4,000 additional cabinets across both sites.

The expansion will help support the rising need for high-density power, advanced cooling and interconnection as demand for digital infrastructure accelerates, including artificial intelligence (AI), Equinix said.

The digital infrastructure company invested $240 million to add a total of 4,175 cabinets to two of its International Business Exchange (IBX) data centres – SY5 in Sydney and ME2 in Melbourne.

Located in the suburb of Alexandria in Sydney, New South Wales, SY5 phase 3 provides 2,675 additional cabinets, bringing the total number of cabinets at full build-out to 9,675. In Sydney, Equinix claims it is the only provider with native on-ramps to all six leading cloud service providers.

ME2, located in Fisherman’s Bend in Port Melbourne, is expected to provide 1,500 additional capacity cabinets when the expansion is complete in phase three. This is expected to bring the total number of cabinets. Both expansions reinforce Sydney and Melbourne’s importance as growth metros. In June last year, Equinix opened the first of its two planned Australian xScale data centres, SY9x, in Western Sydney.

The expansion of SY5 and ME2 ensures we have the capacity in place so customers can continue to take advantage of the thriving Australian digital economy with minimal friction,” said Guy Danskine, managing director of Equinix Australia.

“Since Private AI is emerging as the preferred model of adoption, access to high-performance digital infrastructure is essential,” he claimed. This provides organisations with low-latency connectivity to multiple cloud providers, as well as private infrastructure, enabling them to leverage best-of-breed AI models while maintaining localisation and control of their data.”

Equinix plans to expand support for advanced liquid cooling technologies, like direct-to-chip, from early 2H 2024 to address compute-intensive AI workloads locally. This expansion will enable more businesses to use the most performant cooling technologies for the powerful, high-density hardware that supports them in leveraging AI.

Danskine said the company has already implemented a wide range of sustainable construction initiatives in both SY5 and ME2 data centres. These initiatives aim to minimise waste and maximise the use of recycled materials during the building process.