The $US 84 million of new investment will go primarily to expand their data centres in Toronto, Calgary and Kamloops, although their other five Canadian data centres will also be eligible for funds for facility expansion.
Andrew Eppich, Managing Director at Equinix Canada.
Digital infrastructure provider Equinix has just announced a multi-year USD $84 million commitment of new funds to its Canadian operations. The money will be used to expand their existing eight data centres, particularly the three in Toronto, Calgary and Kamloops. It is part of Equinix’s global strategy of enhancing its links between all of its Canadian data centres, and their global data centres generally.
“The $84 million will mainly be used for expansions of facilities in Toronto, Calgary and Kamloops,” said Andrew Eppich, Managing Director at Equinix Canada. “The last time we talked, it was in regards to bringing products to market, like Equinix Edge. This, on the other hand, is very much the expansion of facilities. It is absolutely a validation of our investment in Canada.”
It is also is a reflection of Equinix’s global strategy of forging stronger links among their data centres in Canada and beyond.
“As companies accelerate their digital transformation, not just in Canada but on the global stage, our strategy is interconnecting all the major centres that are on our global platform by connecting them,” Eppich said. “This was prompted by our really seeing an increase in a more aggressive IT strategy.”
The partnership play is paramount to this Equinix strategy, he continued. “A strategic partner like NVIDIA works on AI infrastructure, but they need a place to connect it that is fully secure. Only a week ago, we announced a global relationship with VMware, as we are creating partnerships with these ecosystems in mind. We are the place where those partners can create the greatest value of possibilities – a multi hybrid network-neutral facility.”
While the Toronto, Calgary and Kamloops facilities are the focus, Eppich said that they won’t get all of the investment.
“The $84 million doesn’t limit it only to those three environments,” he noted. “In Montreal, we are optimizing additional power to permit expansion of existing cabs [cabinets – a unit of capacity in colos that includes both space and power].
Equinix has eight metros across Canada that they serve through local data centres: Vancouver, Kamloops, Calgary, Winnipeg, the GTA [Greater Toronto Area], Ottawa, Montreal and St John, NB.
‘Some centres like Kamloops are for regional workloads, and were purpose-built to satisfy those,” Eppich said. The focus in Canada will be expanding these eight, rather than starting up new ones.
Looking forward to next year, Eppich also said to look for Equinix to continue their commitment to sustainability.
“It’s a continuation of our strategy around sustainability,” he emphasized. “Our capacity is good but we see ourselves as making sure that the technology is executed in a sustainable way. Our goal is to have 100% green energy by 2030, and we are 95% of the way there now.”
Equnix just posted the longest consecutive quarterly revenue growth streak of any S&P500 company, with 79 consecutive quarters of positive revenue.
