Equinix strengthens presence in India with enhanced interconnection services

The American multinational firm Equinix, which specialises in Internet connection and data centres, is expanding its digital interconnection services in India. Acknowledging the significant surge in digital business expansion prompting IT leaders to increasingly embrace virtual infrastructure, Equinix has launched a suite of advanced digital interconnection services—Equinix Fabric, Equinix Internet Exchange and Equinix Internet Access.

Manoj Paul, Managing Director, India, Equinix, told Business Today: “The digital transformation wave is reshaping the business landscape, with 90% of Fortune 500 companies expected to transform into digital providers. These companies will not only sell digital services but also consume them. Additionally, an impressive 80% of G2000 companies are projected to emerge as digital leaders. They will achieve this by interconnecting with four or more hyperscale providers and over 30 SaaS/business providers on average, solidifying their position at the forefront of the digital revolution.” 

The advanced digital services launched include Equinix Fabric, Equinix Internet Exchange and Equinix Internet Access. Equinix Fabric is claimed to be a secure, software-defined interconnection service that can help customers build digital infrastructure and services on demand at software speed. It supports scaling up hybrid deployments, achieving network agility and directly connecting to partners and providers easily and securely. Key cloud service providers (CSPs) such as AWS, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Alibaba, and Salesforce are accessible in all Fabric metros, ensuring comprehensive connectivity options for customers.

The Equinix Internet Exchange is an interconnection service that enables networks, content providers and large enterprises to exchange internet traffic and expand operations globally. It is capable of aggregating thousands of peering sessions, at lowers costs and enhances network control, performance, speed and reliability. Lastly, Equinix Internet Access provides internet access in Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) data centres across more than 50 markets globally. “With at least two upstream ISPs in each market, it offers the resiliency that organisations demand and direct connections to major content destinations for superior performance. This agile, scalable, resilient and high performing internet access solution provides the flexibility required to connect to the internet as a main or backup internet access solution, allowing businesses to grow as their usage requirements do via scalable bandwidth options,” adds Paul.

Equinix entered India through a $161 million acquisition of GPX India in September 2021, and has two interconnected data centres in the country. In November 2021, Equinix announced the launch of Global Centre of Excellence (GCoE) in India, which will contribute to the development of innovative, automated and scalable digital technologies to improve the digital infrastructure resilience of our customers and employees.

As the company plans to hire approximately 500 IT professionals in Bengaluru by the end of 2024, Paul says, “Our objective is to build independent, autonomous teams in India working in tandem with local leadership in an agile fashion to accelerate the pace of innovation. We are looking to set up a talent hub to focus on emerging technologies, corporate applications, data engineering and analytics, among other IT domains.”

Equinix has also announced an initial investment of over $86 million to build Equinix’s third International Business ExchangeTM (IBX) data centre in Mumbai and an estimated investment of over Rs 1,000 crore ($125 million) in phases over the next 10 years for building a world class data centre in Chennai’s Siruseri area.