Equinix is extending the digital edge with a new International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre in Sydney, to be named SY5. The $160 million first phase of the South Sydney facility, which is targeted to open in Q3 2019 and will offer an initial capacity of 1,825 cabinets, further solidifies Equinix’s market leadership in Australia. The new IBX will be the largest to date for Equinix in Australia with 9,225 cabinets when fully built.
The density of carriers, cloud service providers (CSP) and subsea cables in South Sydney make it an important location for Equinix. A recent study by Frost & Sullivan also revealed that enterprises in Australia have high awareness of edge computing architecture.[1] As the Australian market continues to advance year-on-year with growth in cloud computing, big data, IoT applications and analytics software, and with 5G going live this year, Equinix continues to expand its presence in Australia by bringing local and global businesses closer to the digital edge to support their digital transformation journeys.
The SY5 IBX will be located in Alexandria, about 2.5 miles from Sydney’s central business district, and will host a total colocation space of more than 260,000 square feet (approximately 25,000 square metres) when fully built. When the facility opens, Equinix will have a national footprint of 16 IBX data centres across Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Canberra, Adelaide and Brisbane, with eight in Sydney.
Equinix Sydney facilities enable companies to set up direct links to the continent’s two largest peering points along with direct access to: the trans-Pacific telecommunications cables network Southern Cross Cable Head; the PIPE Pacific Cable network that runs from Australia to Guam; the new submarine cable system Hawaiki that connects Australia with New Zealand, other Pacific Islands and the continental US; as well as the Australia Singapore Cable (ASC) between Australia and Singapore. The SY5 IBX will also benefit from Equinix Metro Connect connectivity to the SY6 IBX in Silverwater, providing customers with the ability to support geographical diversity and redundancy as needed to support full business continuity within the Sydney basin.
Jeremy Deutsch, Managing Director, Equinix Australia, commented: “Sitting on Platform Equinix, SY5 further enables us to offer scalable digital infrastructure and on-demand interconnection both in the local market and across the Asia-Pacific region via a single platform. Local businesses are increasingly functioning at the digital edge with interconnection. SY5 is a display of our commitment to meeting our customers’ needs, providing them with the ability to securely and directly connect their employees, partners and customers.”