Equinix, the global interconnection and data centre company, and Oman Telecommunications Company, have announced a joint venture to deliver data centre and interconnection services to customers in the Middle East through the development of a new network-dense data centre that will be located in Barka, near Muscat, the capital of Oman.
Oman is strategically positioned between Asia, Africa and Europe, and the new Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre will create a regional interconnection hub with ultra-low latencies between global business markets. Based on demand and requirements, customers in the GCC and wider MENA region can also leverage other Equinix data centres in the region for dual access to content providers, allowing carriers, content providers and cloud providers to further build resilience into their IT and network infrastructure.
The new data centre will benefit from connectivity to strategic cable landing stations (CLS) and subsea cable systems that terminate directly inside the facility. It will also benefit from the investments by Omantel in multiple strategic subsea cable systems throughout the region and world. This subsea cable connectivity will provide customers with significant cost savings and an increase in performance and security.
Under the terms of the agreement, Equinix and Omantel will both fund equity contributions in an amount of US$10 million for the joint venture representing a 50% shareholding each, and additional funds will be raised through debt financing assumed by the joint venture company.
Equinix will operate the new IBX data centre, which will include 18,600 square feet of colocation space and approximately 750 cabinets at full build. The first phase of the three-phase build will include 250 cabinets and is expected to be completed and open for business by Q2 2019.
Eric Schwartz, President, EMEA, Equinix, commented:”We see significant potential for Oman as a market generally and, in particular, supporting CLS requirements as subsea cable momentum accelerates. It’s all about meeting the growing need for interconnection – private data exchange between businesses. In the digital age, companies need to reach everywhere, interconnect everyone and integrate everything, and they need to do it out at the digital edge, where commerce, population centres and digital ecosystems meet. Our joint venture with Omantel will do exactly that.”
