Equinix, Inc. is an American multinational company headquartered inRedwood City, California,[3] that specializes inInternet connectivity anddata centers also referred to as Carrier Hotels. The company is a leader in globalcolocation data center market share,[4] with 260 data centers in 33 countries on five continents.[2][5]
Equinix is listed on theNasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol EQIX, and as of December 2023[update], they employ approximately 13,000 people worldwide.[2] The company converted to areal estate investment trust (REIT) in January 2015.[6]
Equinix, Inc. was founded in 1998 by Al Avery andJay Adelson, two facilities managers atDigital Equipment Corporation. The firm promoted its data center platform as a neutral place where competing networks could connect and sharedata traffic.[7] The firm capitalized on the "network effect," through which each new customer would broaden the appeal of its platform.[8] It expanded toAsia-Pacific in October 2002[9] and Europe in mid-2007,[10] followed by Latin America in mid-2011,[11] and the Middle East in 2013.[12]
In 2018, according to data collected by the online publication Sludge,[13] Equinix signed three contracts with theU.S. Customs and Border Protection to provide "information technology support equipment" totalling over $5 million.[14] In September 2020, the company shifted its branding to describe itself as a "digital infrastructure company".[15]
In 2002, Equinix merged with i-STT, the Internet infrastructure service subsidiary ofSingapore Technologies Telemedia, and Pihana Pacific.[16] This established the company's presence inChina,Singapore,Australia andJapan.[17] In 2007, the firm announced a $2 billion international expansion plan and entered the European market by acquiring data center operator IXEurope and its facilities. In 2010, Equinix opened its 50th data center inLondon.[18] Over the next seven years, the company nearly tripled its data center portfolio, growth the company attributed to increased demand caused by the emergence of cloud computing, theInternet of Things andbig data.[19][20][21]
In 2010, the company purchasedSwitch and Data Facilities Company, Inc., a U.S. internet exchange and colocation services provider.[22] The company extended its operations to the Middle East and in Southeast Asia in 2012.[12][23] Also in 2012, it acquiredHong Kong-based data center provider Asia-Tone.[24] In 2014, Equinix increased its Latin American presence when it acquiredALOG Datacenters of Brazil S.A., the country's leading provider of carrier-neutral data centers.[11]
In 2015, Equinix converted to areal estate investment trust (REIT) to gain tax advantages and add shareholder value.[6] That same year, it acquired the professional services company Nimbo.[25]
In May 2015, Equinix said it would purchase the British companyTelecityGroup, the largest acquisition in company history.[26] The offer was cleared by theEuropean Commission in November[27] after Equinix agreed to sell eight of its data centers around Europe toDigital Realty,[28][29] but it still retained the Telecity Harbour Exchange data center inLondon Docklands.[30] In January 2016, Equinix completed the Telecity acquisition in a transaction valued at approximately $3.8 billion.[31] The addition of these data centers more than doubled Equinix's capacity in Europe.[32] In December 2015, the company purchased Japanese provider Bit-Isle,[31] adding six data centers in Japan.[33]
In 2016, Equinix opened new data centers inDallas, Sydney, and Tokyo[34] and announced a deal to acquire 29 data centers in 15 markets fromVerizon.[35]
In 2017, the firm opened a new data center inSão Paulo.[36] That same year, Equinix acquired Itconic, which expanded its data center footprint into Spain and Portugal.[37][38]
In 2018, Equinix purchased the DallasInfomart building, where it had already been operating four data centers.[39] It also acquired Australian data center provider Metronode and its 10 data centers.[40] The company opened its first data center inSouth Korea the next year.[41]
In 2020, Equinix finalized the purchase of Packet, a startup[42] that providedbare-metal servers as a cloud service.[43] The company expanded intoIndia in August 2020, with the acquisition of GPX India, including a campus inMumbai with two data centers.[44][45] In October 2020, Equinix completed the acquisition of 13Bell Canada data centers.[46][47] The company also invested heavily inhyperscale xScale data centers.[48][49]
On December 7, 2021, Equinix announced its acquisition ofMain One, a West African data center and connectivity solutions provider, for $320 million.[50]
In March 2022, Equinix expanded intoChile andPeru with $758 million acquisition of four data centers fromEntel.[51][52]
In November 2022, Equinix announced its market entry into Malaysia with plans to build a new International Business Exchange (IBX) data center located inIskandar Puteri,Johor Bahru,Johore called JH1. With an initial investment of approximately $40 million, JH1 is scheduled to begin operations in Q1 2024, providing 500 cabinets and 1,960 square meters of colocation space.[53]
In 2015, the company made a long-term pledge to power its entire data center platform with clean andrenewable energy.[54] The pledge followed criticism in 2014 from the environmental groupGreenpeace, which said in an annual report on the environmental practices of Internet companies that Equinix had an insufficient commitment to renewable energy andcarbon emissions mitigation.[55] The company signed deals withwind farms inTexas andOklahoma to buy enough renewable energy to offset the energy consumption of its North American data center portfolio.[56]
In September 2020, Equinix priced $1.35 billion in green bonds to finance new and existing green projects.[59] At the same time, the company announced a Green Finance Framework to standardize transparency reporting for green debt disclosures.[60][61] In November 2020, the EPA gave Equinix its 2020 Green Power Partner of the Year award.[62][63]
Equinix claims to have invested more than $25 billion in its data center platform.[65] The firm calls its data centers International Business Exchanges (IBXs).[66] In 2017, the company launched its owndata center infrastructure management platform, IBX SmartView.[67][68] The company'sInternet Exchange service allowsISPs and enterprises to exchange Internet traffic through a global peering tool.[69][70]
US$8.75 billion (2024)
US$1.33 billion (2024)
