Equinix announced the opening of its new $113 million International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre, AM4, in Amsterdam at its Science Park campus to address increasing demand for interconnection capacity from business customers.
Equinix's new AM4 IBX facility in Amsterdam is adjacent to the existing AM3 data centre and is designed to enable companies to extend network infrastructure to the digital edge and enhance workload performance by shortening the distance between services and the end users.
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 approximately $189 million and provide 4,200 cabinets across eight floors with more than 125,000 gross sq feet (11,500 sq meters) of data centre space.
Equinix noted that it operates multiple Amsterdam data centre campuses, with the addition of AM4 adding capacity to meet growing demand for hybrid cloud, interconnection and connectivity to business ecosystems across vertical markets and Internet exchanges. The company noted that according to the European Commission's Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) 2017, the Netherlands ranked as the 4th most advanced digital economy in the EU, The company added that the Netherlands offers connectivity to over 150 global submarine cable systems and Equinix data centres in Amsterdam provide high density networks to offer Dutch businesses greater choice when planning IT projects. In addition, multinationals seeking to expand into Europe also consider Amsterdam a top destination, providing connectivity to around 80% of Europe within 50 milliseconds latency.
Equinix Amsterdam currently has more than 700 customers, provides connections to over 150 network service providers and access to an established cloud ecosystem that includes AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Office 365, Oracle and IBM Softlayer. Equinix also allows buyers and sellers of cloud services to connect via the Equinix Cloud Exchange in Amsterdam and more than 20 markets worldwide.
Separately, Equinix announced an expansion of its presence in the Frankfurt, Germany market with the opening of FR6, the new $96 million IBX data centre located at Campus Kleyer. The new facility offers low-latency connectivity to Europe and international markets, and is designed to meet enterprises' need for data-intensive applications such as electronic trading, data analytics and IoT scenarios requiring IT deployments closer to the network edge.
