Equinix Expands Asia-Pacific Footprint to Meet Customer Demand

Around five years ago, several Equinix customers approached the company and asked if it could support their expansion into some key Asia Pacific markets.

Jeremy Deutsch, president of Equinix in the Asia Pacific, says the company has worked with its customers to locate critical digital infrastructure in their preferred markets since the early 2000s, beginning with Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and Australia.

“The digital edge for our customers continues to expand in the Asia-Pacific, and they gave us a list, and we have worked to execute against that,” says Deutsch.

"It has developed to a point where not only can these global customers access our full digital transformation toolkit installed in sites, but domestic organizations can also connect to the global Equinix platform.”

With new facilities recently announced for Malaysia, India, and Indonesia, Equinix is continuing to provide customers with infrastructure capabilities in new and expanding markets at a critical time for many companies and their digital transformations.

“We create an environment where local content providers and the likes of global providers like Netflix can come and locate their infrastructure directly in those countries to improve user experiences and enable more secure access to services,” says Deutsch.

"Our global cloud partners such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle have the ability to extend their networks into these new markets and perhaps come with us to create private on-ramp locations for the cloud, which then enables all the enterprises to come and get the full advantages of cloud transformation,” he adds.

"Then you layer on top the next wave of digital innovation in artificial intelligence, and you have the beachhead capability to support all of these applications inside Equinix. We are trying to create that exact model in India, Indonesia, and Malaysia."

Seamless and enabled

Deutsch says latency was a key factor driving the demand. Those "glitchy experiences" of loading applications and unsatisfactory processing times "had to go and have to be changed for digital transformation to be seamless and enabled."

"The next point is that for most users, the infrastructure is now mission critical," says Deutsch.

“Look at a market such as India, for example. You have a huge population and massive digitalization through the economy. Today, when you buy food on the side of the road, you can use a QR code, but to enable that, you need digital services that are proximate and highly accessible, and that is where Equinix has helped."

India has a population of 1.4 billion, Indonesia has 270 million and Malaysia, a proximate hub location to Singapore, has 36 million.

“What we offer is repeatable, and that means that what I can do in Malaysia will be what I can do in Singapore is the same as I can do in Amsterdam,” says Deutsch.

“So, if I'm a global provider, I can scale, and I get all the advantages that Equinix has built over 20 years, and I can have that deployed directly in my market with all the global partners lined up, and I can take advantage of that and build it into my IT architecture."

World-class capability

Deutsch says Equinix "brings the Swiss Army knife" to customers who want world-class capability but want to mix and match and tailor their infrastructure.

“It’s exactly the same as an iPhone, in that all the apps are there, and I can get everything I need done on one device with a really nice user experience," he says.

“That is ultimately what you get from the full eco-system platform from Equinix.”

This model was particularly supportive of the hybrid multi-cloud environment, which is presented as optimal for many organizations.

“Having a neutral environment where there are multiple providers means you can get the best solution and the most attractive price, so that is number one,” says Deutsch.

"Number two is the services that you have available, the different clouds, and the service providers in the software as a service sector. They are right there so you can build your architecture,” he adds.

"Then you have another layer, security, and these elements are privately connected inside the building with Equinix fabric. You can then take advantage of this in other locations where Equinix connects you."

AI-driven demand

Controlling and leveraging data is increasingly important and exponentially more achievable with Artificial Intelligence, but AI also needs enhanced data storage and—often cloud-based—computing power.

Equinix partners with Nvidia to support its customers' AI projects, and its expansion into new locations enables organizations to deploy these services to the edge.

As an example if this can be, “if you are a large enterprise in Malaysia, for example, and you’ve got a large set of data that you need to use to train the AI models,” says Deutsch.

There were also data sovereignty issues, where organizations needed to have data and services in places proximate to their location, and it was not possible to "just pick that data up and move it around everywhere."

Having facilities in more Asia Pacific locations offered a solution to customers facing the data sovereignty issue.

Greening the grid

Another issue Equinix is tackling is sustainability, and the company currently sources 96% of its global power utilization through renewable energy, with a target of 100% by 2030.

In Australia, Equinix recently announced a new Power Purchase Agreement with TagEnergy, its first long-term renewable energy deal in the Asia Pacific, bringing the number to 21 worldwide.

Equinix, an investor in the project, will procure 151 megawatts of renewable energy from the expansion of the Golden Plains Wind Farm, which is set for completion in 2029.

There are also smaller projects, such as the 1-megawatt solar rooftop power plant at the Equinix Facility at Fisherman’s Bend in Melbourne.

“We are committed to Greening the Grid, and this is incredibly relevant to our customers as well,” says Deutsch.

"Many of their shareholders are also very focussed on having the lowest environmental impact, and that extends right through the supply chain, so sustainable IT infrastructure is not just the right thing to do; it's a competitive advantage."

Jeremy Deutsch will speak and participate as a panelist at the March 13 webinar with CDOTrends on 'Capitalizing on Asia's Digital Imperative: IT Strategies for Maximizing Sustainable Growth Potential.' The online event is free to attend. To register, click here.

Image credit: iStockphoto/kynny