Equinix Invests Over $86 Million to Build its Third Data Center in Mumbai

Equinix, one of the world’s digital infrastructure companies, has announced an initial investment of over US$86 million to build its third International Business ExchangeT (IBX) data center in Mumbai, to be named MB3, to serve the rapidly increasing digital infrastructure demand. This initial investment involves the acquisition of a parcel of land totaling roughly 4 acres, allowing Equinix to continue expanding its rich ecosystem on Platform Equinix across India, supporting the country’s developing digital economy.

According to a recent JLL analysis, Mumbai is the country’s leading data center market, with a capacity expected to more than double to 530 megawatts (MW) by 2023. Mumbai, India’s economic capital, is home to a dozen subsea cable landing points as well as the majority of the world’s major cloud service providers’ cloud regions. Equinix’s continued investment in Mumbai will boost its network-dense and interconnection-rich data center platform in India, allowing the company to satisfy significant demand from both global and local customers. This development would assist Indian corporations in improving their digital transformation strategies while also allowing foreign companies from a number of industries to establish operations in India.

Strategically located in Mumbai’s Commercial district (Chandivali area), which is regarded as the retail data center sub-market, MB3 IBX will be adjacent to Equinix MB2 IBX data center and 1.5 kilometers away from MB1 IBX data center. The first phase of MB3 is scheduled to open in Q2 2024, providing an initial capacity of more than 1,375 cabinets, and more than 4,150 cabinets when fully built out.

Manoj Paul, Managing Director, Equinix India said in a statement that the increasing digitalization of the economy is continuously driving the demand for data center and interconnection services in India. Particularly in Mumbai, the high demand for digital infrastructure services among Indian and international customers is making them very optimistic about the market. Equinix is focused on further investments in building the infrastructure in India to enable their existing and new customers in India to launch their services closer to their consumers. The close proximity of MB3 at Chandivali Farm Road to the existing data centers will enable them to form a robust campus so that the customers can leverage the dense ecosystems from any of their data centers in Mumbai. This investment will also be supporting the government’s vision to make India a key data center hub in South East Asia.

Globally, Equinix operates more than 240 data centers across 70 metros, providing digital infrastructure for more than 10,000 of the world’s leading businesses. In Asia-Pacific, Equinix currently has 52 data centers in key metros across Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea and Singapore.

Equinix, as a global provider of digital infrastructure, has a responsibility to lower its carbon footprint in order to contribute to a more sustainable future. Since 2018, Equinix’s renewable energy coverage has exceeded 90 percent, and it is scheduled to reach 95 percent by 2021. The company has achieved its goal of using solely renewable energy in India. Equinix is also the industry’s first to commit to global carbon neutrality by 2030, as proven by its science-based targets (SBT) and environmental innovation strategy.

Equinix entered India in 2021 with the acquisition of two Mumbai data centers, MB1 and MB2. The two data centers in Mumbai, which have a total capacity of 1,350 cabinets, house the digital infrastructure of over 270 international and local brands, including the world’s leading cloud service providers, global networks, content delivery network providers, all local carriers, more than 165 internet service providers (ISPs), and five internet exchanges. Equinix will enter the Chennai market in March 2022 after purchasing around 5.5 acres of land.

In connection with the land deal, JLL served as Equinix’s exclusive real estate advisor.