Equinix opens First AI-Ready Data Center in Chennai for growth and Innovation

Equinix, Inc., the world’s digital infrastructure company^®, is accelerating India’s digital evolution and expanding its AI ecosystem with the opening of its first International Business Exchange™ (IBX^®) data center in Chennai, CN1. Located in Siruseri on a nearly six-acre plot of land, this new facility will be interconnected with Equinix’s Mumbai campus, which consists of three IBX data centers, to support business digitization and resilience, as well as AI development in India. 

With an initial investment of $69 million to provide 800 cabinets of capacity, this state-of-the-art facility will eventually support 4,250 cabinets. The data center is engineered for a high reliability of 99.999% uptime and features a full suite of Equinix interconnection services, including Equinix Fabric^®, which enables enterprises to leverage the full benefits of hybrid multicloud services. Its advanced design also enables support for liquid cooling technology, which is essential for handling the high-density, compute-intensive workloads that are driving AI and other transformative technologies. As Tamil Nadu strengthens its position as a key hub for innovation, research and AI investment, Chennai is emerging as the country's focal point for this technological evolution, paving the way for India to increase its global competitiveness in digital services and AI development. 

Equinix currently hosts more than 300 companies in India, including network service providers and five internet exchanges. Its Mumbai campus consists of three high-performance data centers and hosts a robust cloud ecosystem for customers in India, including native on-ramps to key cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud. With the launch of CN1, customers in Chennai can gain low-latency access to this key digital ecosystem, enabling seamless and secure connectivity with their business partners, customers and providers. 

Manoj Paul, Managing Director, India, Equinix, said, “We are delighted to announce the launch of our state-of-the-art IBX data center, CN1, in Chennai, marking Equinix’s expansion in India and a pivotal step in advancing the nation’s digitalization journey. Our success in building the most interconnected ecosystem for cloud, carrier, content and enterprises in Mumbai will now be extended to customers in Tamil Nadu. Similarly, global enterprises planning to come closer to their customers in southern India now can leverage Equinix’s IBX facility in Chennai. This milestone highlights our commitment to empowering India’s position as a global technology hub while ensuring sustainability and innovation remain at the core of our operations. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the Tamil Nadu Government in general and Industries Department, Guidance and SIPCOT for their unwavering support throughout our planning and construction period, making this vision a reality. With CN1’s cutting-edge capabilities, we look forward to enabling businesses in Chennai and across India to leverage future-ready, scalable and digital infrastructure that supports sustainability to expand their business in Tamil Nadu and globally.” 

Equinix reinforces its commitment to sustainability and technological innovation with the launch of CN1 in Chennai, designed to meet India’s growing computational and AI demands. Globally, Equinix operates more than 270 data centers across 77 markets in 36 countries, serving over 10,000 leading businesses and enabling their digital transformation. In the Asia-Pacific region, Equinix’s portfolio includes more than 60 data centers across key metros in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore, providing interconnection and digital infrastructure solutions to support the region’s dynamic economies. 

Highlights/Key Facts:

·         Located in the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT) Ltd land in the Siruseri area, CN1 campus spreads over nearly six acres of land. The location is approximately 28 km away from the bustling Central Business District, holding a key position near anticipated submarine cable landing sites.

·         Equinix CN1 is a four-story building and will ultimately provide a total site capacity of 4,250 cabinets when fully built. The first phase of CN1 provides 800 cabinets.

·         CN1 is AI-ready, purpose-built to accommodate liquid cooling solutions, enabling support for high-density, compute-intensive workloads and ensuring scalable infrastructure for future AI and emerging technologies.

• Equinix will provide robust interconnection services at CN1, including software-defined interconnection (Equinix Fabric and Equinix Fabric Cloud Router), to enable customers to directly interconnect with partners and create hybrid multicloud infrastructure easily and securely.

·         In 2024, Equinix reached 96% renewables coverage across its global operations, including India.