Equinix, the global interconnection and data centre company, has announced the opening of its new International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre in Amsterdam at its Science Park campus. The $113M facility, called AM4, supports the increasing demand for interconnection capacity to accelerate business performance.
According to Cisco, global IP traffic is set to increase nearly threefold in the next five years[1]. This growth in IP traffic will accelerate the need for greater connectivity for organisations hoping to create business value as they undergo digital transformation. AM4 enables companies to extend network infrastructure to the digital edge and enhance workload performance by shortening the distance between services and users.
The Netherlands has connections to more than 150 global submarine cables networks and Equinix data centres in Amsterdam represent one of the densest network concentrations in the world. This massive amount of network connectivity combined with the latest advancements in data centre technology provides Dutch businesses with significant choice when strategising future IT deployments. For this reason, multinationals looking to expand into Europe also consider Amsterdam a top destination, as it locating there facilitates connectivity to 80% of Europe within 50 milliseconds to maximise performance.
Today, Equinix operates multiple Amsterdam data centre campuses and the addition of AM4 further increases capacity to meet growing demand for hybrid cloud, interconnection and connectivity to business ecosystems across a number of vertical markets and internet exchanges. High connectivity makes Amsterdam Science Park an attractive location and cloud hotspot in Europe, which handles approximately 38% of the Dutch data traffic, making it the second-largest data route in the Netherlands.
The initial phase of AM4 includes space for 1,555 cabinets and is planned to have four expansion phases. At full build the vertical facility will represent a total investment of $189 million and provide 4,200 cabinets across eight floors with more than 125,000 gross square feet (11,500 square meters) of data centre space.
Equinix has a long-term goal of using 100% clean and renewable energy for its global platform and continues to make advancements in the way it designs, builds and operates its data centres with high energy efficiency standards. For example, Equinix’s Amsterdam data centres at Science Park realise significant energy savings and reduction in their CO2 footprint using an in-ground Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage, instead of mechanical cooling, and has one of the lowest operating PUE’s in the retail colocation sector.
