Equinix expands to Chennai with $65 mn investments in new data centre

Equinix, a digital infrastructure company, announced on Tuesday that it will establish its first International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre in Chennai. The data centre, named CN1, will cover nearly six acres of land and have a total site capacity of 4,950 cabinets or around 25 megawatts of power when fully constructed, with an initial investment of $65 million.

CN1 will be situated in the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ltd. (SIPCOT) land in the Siruseri area, approximately 28 kilometres from the Central Business District. It will be strategically positioned near anticipated submarine cable landing sites, as stated in a press release by the company.

The hub is designed to cater to the needs of enterprises and hyperscalers, including AI deployments, and is scheduled to open in Q4 2024. CN1 will also be linked to Equinix's three existing high-performance data centres in Mumbai.

Manoj Paul, Managing Director of Equinix India, explained the rationale behind this decision, stating, "We are witnessing India’s growing prominence as a pivotal data centre hub in South Asia, driven by strong interest from major global players looking to anchor and expand their operations here, along with Indian enterprises expanding their digital infrastructure to support the growth of one of the world's fastest-growing economies."

"Equinix has the most hyper-connected 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 ecosystems. The addition of our Chennai data centre will further extend this ecosystem to customers in Chennai," he added.

Chennai has earned a reputation as one of the most tech-savvy states in India and aspires to become a trillion-dollar economy by 2030. According to Mordor Intelligence, "The Chennai data centre market is valued at 135.6 MW in the current year and is expected to register a CAGR of 22.18 per cent during the forecast period, reaching 566.2 MW in the next five years."

One of the reasons Chennai is a sought-after data centre market is its connectivity to the global subsea cable network, as per the report. Tamil Nadu's clear data centre policy has attracted big names like AdaniConnex, CapitaLand, Colt DCS, CtrlS Datacenters, Digital Connexion, NTT, Nxtra by Airtel, Sify, STT GDC, and many others to the state. Ambattur and Siruseri have emerged as preferred locations for data centres in Chennai.

Paul also mentioned the support received from the Industries and IT Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu, SIPCOT, and Guidance Tamil Nadu, which facilitated Equinix's entry into the Chennai market.

Equinix aims for its facilities in India, including the upcoming ones in Chennai and Mumbai (CN1 and MB3), to be 100 per cent powered by renewables, as the company strives for climate neutrality by 2030. 

Globally, Equinix operates 260 data centres across 71 metros in 33 countries, providing digital infrastructure for over 10,000 of the world's leading businesses. In the Asia-Pacific region, Equinix currently operates 56 data centres in key metros across Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore.