Equinix has made a $43 million investment to construct its fourth Equinix data center, TY4, in Ōtemachi, Tokyo.
Data center operator Equinix announced on Thursday it has made a $43 million investment to construct its fourth Equinix data center, TY4, in Otemachi, Tokyo.
The move comes a few weeks after Equinix sold 16 of its US-based Equinix data centers to 365 Main. At the time of the announcement, Equinix said the data centers were sold because they were either in markets that were not areas of focus for the company, or that were already adequately served by existing Equinix capacity.
With more than 100 data centers around the world, Equinix has been focused on expanding its footprint throughout Asia, in recent years. In June, Equinix launched phase four of its second Singapore Equinix data center.
As John Rath points out in a post on Data Center Knowledge (Equinix To Build Fourth Tokyo Data Center), Equinix’s current Tokyo data center footprint spans “more than 194,000 square feet of space”.
Located in the heart of Tokyo, Equinix’s TY4 will meet strong demand for the company’s premium data center services in the Otemachi area while giving customers flexiblity to choose from a range of network connectivity options.
The data center will be built in two phases, providing a total capacity of 750 cabinet equivalents.
The first phase is set to open in the third quarter and will have an initial capacity of 450 cabinet equivalents. TY4 will feature direct fiber connectivity to Equinix’s three other IBX data centers in Tokyo, enabling it to further facilitate customer interconnections.
Japan is currently seeing a high demand for data center services, with the data center outsourcing market projected to reach $20 billion in 2015, according to IDC.
Otemachi, in particular, is the Internet Exchange hub in Japan, with 90 percent of Internet traffic being exchanged in the area.
Equinix hired Japanese real estate developer Mitsubishi Estate to assist the company in finding an ideal location for TY4.
The new data center provides the ability to connect to an established ecosystem of existing and potential customers and partners, offers close proximity to the major financial exchanges in the Japanese capital, and enables ISPs and content providers to reduce IP transit costs and improves end user experience via Equinix’s Internet Exchange.
“Tokyo is a strategic market for Equinix as it is one of the largest data center markets worldwide and a primary gateway for traffic from the U.S. to Asia,” said Kei Furuta, managing director at Equinix Japan. “We believe our expanded presence in Japan will give our customers greater access to global network connectivity and capitalize on the opportunities presented by the Japanese market. We would like to thank Mitsubishi Estate for its support in securing ‘Otemachi Financial City’ for our TY4 data center.”
Talk Back: Do you think that this new Equinix data center is a good strategic move for Equinix? Are you currently offering data center services in Japan or other Asian markets? Let us know in the comments section.
About Justin Lee
Justin Lee has been a staff analyst with theWHIR since 2004. He writes about a range of web hosting and IT-related issues facing the industry on the WHIR website, as well the print version of the WHIR magazine. Follow him on Twitter @Justin_theWHIR.
