Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), the global interconnection and data center company, announced the opening of its newest International Business Exchange (IBX) data center at its Ashburn campus in Virginia. Named DC12, the $98.5M facility supports the growing demand for interconnection capacity to enable enterprises and government agencies to address new opportunities in the digital economy. The first phase of DC12 will add 1,500 cabinets and more than 57,800 gross square feet of data center space, and provides campus cross-connectivity. At full build, the facility will provide capacity for approximately 3,000 cabinets. With the addition of DC12, Equinix now operates 14 IBX data centers in the Washington, D.C. area.
The Ashburn campus is a major communications gateway to Europe and a largest internet peering point in North America. The DC12 IBX data center offers access to a dense mix of top global networks, cloud service providers, digital content companies and social media platforms, offering enterprise and government agency customers the ability to interconnect with partners and customers to quickly and efficiently exchange critical operational data.
Since its founding, Equinix has invested nearly $1 billion to build and expand its presence in the Washington, D.C. metro area, which is the world’s largest concentration of data centers. Equinix has purchased four additional parcels of land spanning 34.5 acres for future expansion as needed.
Highlights/Key Facts
- The addition of DC12, which features a flexible data center layout, provides capacity to meet the growing need for interconnection, multi-cloud deployments, and connectivity to network and content services. It is part of the Equinix Ashburn campus in Northern Virginia, one of the most network-dense Equinix locations worldwide and a strategic communications hub for the eastern United States. Customers can choose from a broad range of network services from more than 200 providers as well as the leading cloud platforms including AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Oracle Cloud and others through the Equinix Cloud Exchange and direct connect services.
- In addition to its Washington, D.C. area data centers, Equinix also operates a data center campus in Culpeper, VA, that was acquired earlier this year from Verizon. Strategically located 60 miles from Washington, D.C., the Culpeper campus is another ideal location for government agencies seeking interconnection to key partners within one of the most secure and technologically sophisticated data center campuses in the eastern U.S. Designed to meet the highest government standards, these IBX data centers accelerate Equinix relationships in the government sector, complementing the Ashburn campus and strengthening Equinix as a platform of choice for government services and service providers.
- The Global Interconnection Index, a market study published recently by Equinix, found the U.S. to be the largest and most advanced region for private traffic exchange, with the Ashburn area hosting the largest concentration of network participants and becoming a hotbed for most of the world’s internet traffic. The Washington, D.C. metro area also represents one of the four largest interconnection metros in North America, and is forecasted to see Interconnection Bandwidth growth of 39% annually, to 323 Tbps by 2020.
- Equinix has a long-term goal of using 100 percent clean and renewable energy for its global platform, and continues to make advancements in the way it designs, builds and operates data centers with high energy-efficiency standards. The design elements for DC12 represent the green standard for all future Equinix IBX data center builds. DC12 will be a LEED Gold Certified building. It is expected to meet the strict water reduction standards, and will feature state-of-the-art indirect evaporative cooling (IDEC) technology which dramatically reduces water use.
Kelly Morgan, Research Vice President, Services, 451 Research
“Northern Virginia is the largest data center market in the U.S. and attracts data center tenants from around the world that require interconnection to an extensive ecosystem of cloud and network providers. We believe the region will continue to see rapid growth as data centers race to provide capacity for fast-growing cloud service providers and the digital businesses that seek to connect to these clouds. Equinix’s Ashburn campus embodies the kind of facility that is able to provide interconnection opportunities to businesses that need to improve their overall performance. The Equinix Washington, D.C. data centers are examples of how interconnection is evolving to help companies accelerate their digital transformation.”
Karl Strohmeyer, President, Americas, Equinix:
“The Equinix Ashburn campus features one of the highest densities of networks and cloud providers within our global platform of IBX data centers. Interconnection opportunities for enterprises and government agencies across the Washington, D.C. metro are immense and will enable customers to accelerate their digital transformation.”