Equinix has completed the acquisition of two data centres in India. The company announced the expansion of Platform Equinix into the critical Indian market, after the completion of the acquisition of GPX Global Systems, Inc.’s India business (“GPX India”). The all-cash acquisition of US$161 million comprises a fiber-connected campus in Mumbai with two data centres.
Equinix’s entry into India will open doors for Indian enterprises looking to develop worldwide as well as multinational corporations looking to grow and innovate in the Indian market. Companies can benefit from Equinix’s ability to accelerate their evolution from traditional to digital businesses by rapidly digitising and scaling their infrastructure, easily adopting hybrid multicloud architectures, and interconnecting with more than 350 international brands and local companies in India, thanks to the country’s upcoming 5G rollout.
Manoj Paul, the Managing Director of Equinix India, is a veteran with more than two decades of experience who will use his deep knowledge of the local data centre sector to help businesses in India with their digital transformation journeys.
“Extending Platform Equinix to India with the addition of two world-class, highly interconnected data centers provides a platform for additional expansion across the country, and I am excited about the opportunities ahead for Equinix. With the global footprint of Equinix and the industry’s largest ecosystem, we are well-positioned to be a critical part as well as a driving force of the digital revolution in India, helping businesses to leap forward domestically and globally” stated Manoj Paul, Managing Director, Equinix India.
• The two new International Business ExchangeTM (IBX®) data centres in Mumbai, dubbed Equinix MB1 and MB2, form a network-dense data centre campus with more than 350 international brands and local companies, including the world’s leading cloud service providers (CSPs), global networks, content delivery network (CDN) providers, all local carriers, and 170 internet service providers, as a result of the acquisition.
• The two data centres in Mumbai, which house the digital infrastructure of multiple worldwide corporations, provide an initial 1,350 cabinets, with an additional 500 cabinets to be built out. More than 90,000 square feet of colocation space will be added to the facility Platform Equinix® when fully built.
• Equinix’s Mumbai campus provides a dense cloud environment with direct access to major cloud services such as AWS Direct Connect, Google Cloud Dedicated Interconnect, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure FastConnect. It also hosts important internet exchanges such as AMS-IX India, Extreme IX, Mumbai IX-DECIX, NIXI, and Bharat IX, which allow ISPs, carriers, CDNs, and major corporations to exchange internet traffic.
• Once the business integration is complete, Equinix expects to launch a full suite of interconnection and digital infrastructure services in the new data centres, including Equinix Connect, Equinix Internet Exchange®, Metro Connect, EquinixFabricTM, and Network Edge. Customers in India will be able to connect in real time, directly and discreetly, to more than 10,000 organisations through Platform Equinix, including more than 1,800 networks and 3,000 cloud and IT service providers, for greater performance, security, and scale.
• According to Frost & Sullivan, India’s digital economy would be worth $2 trillion by 2030, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 21%. (CAGR). By 2025, it is expected that 40 percent to 50 percent of Indian firms would deploy applications using a containerized hybrid multicloud architecture. The government’s forthcoming rollout of 5G and ICT policy reforms will boost digitalization and cloud adoption in India. Platform Equinix’s growth will give Indian enterprises and multinationals with a presence in India access to a trusted platform for bringing together and interconnecting the core infrastructure they need to succeed.
• GPX India’s current customers will now have access to Platform Equinix’s global capabilities. OPPO, a leading worldwide smart device brand, has deployed in MB2 and is using Zenlayer’s IP transit and IP peering services to support its important IT activities in India, such as the OPPO App Market Store and the local official website, and end-user data. OPPO’s omnichannel strategy in India and global expansion goals will be aided by today’s news, as it will be able to seamlessly replicate its digital infrastructure with Equinix in India to anyplace via Equinix’s global platform.
• Equinix has helped India-based partners such as HCL Technologies, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, and Wipro deploy their customers’ digital infrastructure at Equinix IBX data centres outside of India over the years.
• Manoj Paul, who was named Managing Director of Equinix India, has over 25 years of experience in IT and telecom infrastructure. Prior to joining Equinix, he was the CEO of GPX India, where he helped the company become India’s most prominent carrier-neutral and cloud-dense data centre. Paul spent 11 years with Bharti Airtel Ltd, his final position being Chief Operating Officer (Enterprises) for the Western area, before joining GPX India.
• Platform Equinix is a global data centre and interconnection provider with more than 230 data centres in 65 metros and 27 countries, serving more than 10,000 of the world’s biggest companies, including more than half of the Fortune 500. Today, Equinix operates 49 IBX data centers in Asia-Pacific across 13 metros in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea and Singapore.
• Equinix received advice from J.P. Morgan, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP, while GPX received advice from KPMG and Kanga & Co.
