Equinix announced that its new $60 million data center will be established in Melbourne in the Australian state of Victoria. Equinix, a global data center and co-location company, has decided to establish this data center in Melbourne to support the growing demand for interconnection and cloud services in the country’s fastest growing city that’s home to one of the world’s strongest economies.

“We are thrilled to have Equinix make this investment in Melbourne through this new state-of-the-art data center,” said Commissioner to the Americas Michael Kapel. “As Melbourne experiences an influx of growth from US companies, this facility will help support the growing demand from consumers for premium data services in cloud and computing.”

Construction of the data center will commence this year, with the first phase targeted for completion toward the end of 2014. Founded in 1998 in the US, Equinix has more than 4,400 customers including 950+ public and private network service providers worldwide and operates more than 95 centres across 32 major metropolitan areas in 15 countries throughout North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and South America. 

“The demand for data center and interconnection services in the Asia Pacific has continued to surge and given Melbourne’s vast resources and sound regulatory environment including excellent data and intellectual property rights protection, it was essential that we opened a data center in this innovative city,” said Tony Simonsen, managing director of Equinix Australia. “This $60 million expansion into Melbourne will meet the demand for premium data center services in Australia and enhance Equinix's global footprint in Asia Pacific.”

Equinix follows a number of many major global players opening locations in Melbourne, including IBM’s Asia-Pacific Software Solutions center, Ericsson’s R&D Center, Computershare’s global headquarters, R&D and Operations Center, Fujitsu’s software development operations and Microsoft Research Center.

“These companies are seeing the long term benefits of the state’s investment in innovation and new business, along with Melbourne's high quality pool of talent that has allowed us to become a global leader in the sector,” added Kapel.

The arrival of Equinix in Melbourne is a result of the continuous growth of the information and communication technology sectors that the city has seen, including, the recent opening of the world's first research center for interactive technology.