Equinix to test 5G-edge use cases in partnership with Nokia

California-based real estate company Equinix, which is engaged in building data centres, including India, has announced opening of a 5G-based Edge Technology Development Centre in Dallas.

The new centre will use Nokia's 5G network to test and validate 5G services and use cases.

The lab will help Equinix test modern concepts by assessing, incubating and testing 5G and edge services.

Edge services refers to a gateway of all other services, and is exposed to the public internet.

“As companies develop new 5G technologies and services, they need a real-world environment to test and bring their concepts to life,” Justin Dustzadeh, CTO, Equinix, said.

The development centre will focus on use cases in six areas, specifically, mobile hybrid multicloud connectivity, network slicing (a method of creating multiple unique logical and virtualised networks from one network), distributed AI-ML projects, infrastructure optimisation, AR-VR technologies and gaming.

For India, the move is significant given that Equinix has shown deep interest in the country, while the government regulations have now led to many companies wanting to have their own data centres in the country.

Earlier this month, Equinix had announced the acquisition of Mumbai-based GPX Global Systems, a data centre manufacturer, for a $161 million in all cash transaction.

The deal also included a fibre-connected campus in Mumbai, along with two data centres.  

The 5G and Edge centre will bring together ecosystem participants to develop end-to-end edge solutions.

The centre will focus on providing a production ready interconnection sandbox environment from the radio network to the cloud.

It is expected to attract mobile network operators, cloud platforms, technology vendors and enterprises to test and accelerate 5G and edge use cases.

To connect the distributed infrastructures of the participants, Equinix will use its Equinix fabric to establish data centre-to-data centre network connections between two Equinix locations in metro cities or utilise software-defined interconnections for the same.

“The way that IP traffic moves between networks around the world will change completely, and interconnected data centres will play a crucial role in this new 5G-dominated future,” Sean Hemphill, VP Webscale Business at Nokia, said.