Equinix, Inc. has announced the opening of its fourth International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data center in Japan, located in Ōtemachi, Tokyo. The new Tokyo data center, known as TY4, enables Equinix to keep up with the fast-growing customer base in Ōtemachi and further solidifies the city’s position as the top network hub in Japan.

 “Equinix has been the perfect choice for us with its extensive reach in Asia-Pacific, and its track record of providing the highest quality services consistently through its global platform. We are excited to see Equinix expand its capabilities at their Ōtemachi site to meet the growing requirements for ourselves and our clients. Japan is the natural connection point between Asia and North America with multiple cable systems connecting the regions. The unique Equinix model with access to more than 70 carriers and network providers locally, and direct access to cable systems is unparalleled in Japan, which makes it the natural choice for multi-venue trading strategies, not only within Japan but between North America, Asia and Australia,” said Sean Lawrence, chief executive officer, ABN AMRO Clearing, Tokyo.

Companies in Japan are in need of additional data center services to meet their customers’ rising demands. According to Fuji Chimera Research Institute, the Japan data center colocation market is forecast to reach a size of 608 billion yen (approximately $6B) in 2017¹. The expansion of Equinix’s footprint in Tokyo will further enable multinational companies to expand into the growing Japan market and better serve their international customers.

Equinix is investing $43M in TY4, providing total capacity of 750 cabinet equivalents with 450 cabinets available in the first phase. TY4 is located in an earthquake-resistant building in one of the most secure locations in Tokyo with multiple anti-disaster measures. In addition, TY4 has direct fiber connectivity to Equinix's three other IBX data centers in the city via the Equinix Metro Connect, a service that provides reliable network connectivity, allowing customers in TY4 to easily expand their business within the Equinix platform.

“The opening of our fourth data center in Tokyo is in response to the ongoing high demand for interconnectivity, efficient space and power capacity we are experiencing from customers in the region. We already have some of the world’s leading financial services firms, network providers, and cloud companies located in our existing facilities in Japan who are benefitting greatly from access to our established ecosystems within Platform Equinix. Our expanded presence in the market with TY4 further strengthens our twin-metro strategy, following our announcement last month to open our first data center in Osaka in the fourth quarter of this year. Customers in Tokyo will be able to benefit from access to sites in the two locations and take advantage of what the market has to offer,” said Kei Furuta, managing director, Equinix Japan K.K.

With its location in Ōtemachi, an international financial center and home to more than 4,000 large enterprises and financial firms, TY4 offers companies an opportunity to expand their IT infrastructure and connect to an established ecosystem of existing and potential customers and partners. TY4’s close proximity to the major financial exchanges in Japan will also provide financial companies with reliable, low-latency connectivity that will ensure timely access to multiple information sources to make critical business decisions.

Companies such ABN Amro Clearing and Box have already expanded into Equinix’s IBX in Japan to meet their customers’ needs and are taking advantage of Platform Equinix™ and its rich ecosystems with the assurance of a consistent level of service quality and performance.

Equinix will further strengthen Ōtemachi’s position as a premier network hub in Japan by providing its customers with access to a dense network of best-in-class providers, as well as the Equinix Internet Exchange (EIE). The EIE, the world’s most widely distributed peering and traffic exchange, will enable Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and content providers to reduce IP transit costs and increase network efficiency by eliminating network hops to improve end user experience for their customers. Companies will also be able to establish new or expand existing peering relationships within TY4.

TY4 is the latest in a series of recently announced IBX expansions to address the growing demand for data center services in the Asia-Pacific region, Equinix most recently announced plans to develop its first IBX in Osaka (OS1), as well as build its third Singapore data center (SG3). In addition, the company expanded into Indonesia in May 2013 in partnership with PT Data Center Infrastructure Indonesia (PT DCI), announced its plan to launch the fifth phase of its SG2 data center and completed the second phase of its fifth IBX facility in Shanghai.