Equinix India sets up its first 'self-built' data centre in Chennai with an investment of $69mn

Equinix launched a new data centre in Chennai on Friday. A colocation facility, Equinix is calling this new infrastructure an International Business Exchange. Built on a six-acre plot of land, this new facility will be interconnected with Equinix’s Mumbai campus, which consists of three IBX data centres, to support business digitization and resilience, as well as AI development in India.

The facility has been built with an initial investment of $69 million to provide 800 cabinets of capacity, which can be expanded to support 4,250 cabinets. Equinix plans to grow this infrastructure in three more phases, expected to be completed in the next 4-5 years; the company hasn’t revealed the overall outlay of the entire project.

The Chennai data centre features a full suite of Equinix interconnection services, including Equinix Fabric, which enables enterprises to leverage hybrid and multicloud services. Other features include liquid cooling technology and hot aisle containment, which support high-density and compute-intensive AI workloads. 

Equinix currently hosts more than 300 companies in India, including network service providers and five internet exchanges. Its Mumbai campus consists of three data centers and hosts providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud. With the launch of CN1, customers in Chennai can gain low-latency access to this key digital ecosystem, enabling seamless and secure connectivity with their business partners, customers and providers, the company said.

“Our success in building the most interconnected ecosystem for cloud, carrier, content and enterprises in Mumbai will now be extended to customers in Tamil Nadu. Similarly, global enterprises planning to come closer to their customers in southern India now can leverage Equinix’s IBX facility in Chennai,” Manoj Paul, Managing Director, Equinix India, said in a media release.

To be sure, this centre is Equinix India’s first ‘self-made’ data centre. The US-based infrastructure entered India in 2022 with the acquisition of GPX India, a data centre service provider, in a deal valued at $161 million. Through the acquisition, Equinix India received a fiber-connected campus in Mumbai with two data centers, adding more than 1,350 cabinets, with an additional 500 cabinets at full buildout. 

“When customers showed interest in specific markets—whether by country or metro—we would begin our process of exploring how to establish a presence there. The same happened with India. As we evaluated possible entry strategies, the opportunity with GPX came up. We realized that GPX India already had the right architecture, strong testing quality, and an existing customer base, making it the ideal entry point for us,” Paul told TechCircle in an interview. Going forward, Equinix India will be adding a new data centre facility in Mumbai. 

The company has completed more than 25 acquisitions worldwide, using them both to enter new countries and to expand within existing markets. In some regions, it has opted for a greenfield approach, such as in Indonesia, while in others it has relied on buyouts to gain scale quickly.

Recent activity reflects this mixed strategy. The firm acquired a data center business from a large U.S. company, strengthened its footprint in Canada, and is pursuing further growth in Ireland. Its entry into Africa came through the acquisition of MainOne. The company continues to keep all options open, evaluating opportunities on a market-by-market basis.

Right now, India is a smaller market for Equinix, but it is a fast-growing one, Paul said. “In India, even though we started from a smaller base, the growth has been much higher than what we see in other markets. The data center business here has also been constrained by limited capacity for some time. With the new Mumbai Data Center coming up, we expect a significant jump—similar to what we have observed in other countries. At the company level, this restructuring positions us much better for growth,” said.

India’s data centre industry is on a sharp upward trajectory, with capacity expected to climb 77% to 1.8 GW by 2027, according to JLL’s latest Indian Data Centre Market Dynamics report. The sector crossed the 1 GW milestone in 2024, marking a compound annual growth rate of 24% since 2019. The surge is being fuelled by hyperscale cloud demand and the emerging wave of AI workloads, positioning India as one of the fastest-growing hubs in the global digital infrastructure race.

Globally, Equinix operates more than 270 data centers across 77 markets in 36 countries, serving over 10,000 businesses and enabling their digital transformation. In the Asia-Pacific region, Equinix’s portfolio includes more than 60 data centers across key metros in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore, providing interconnection and digital infrastructure solutions to support the region’s economies.

Note: The author was in Chennai on Equinix's invitation