Equinix  has announced that it will build its fifth International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data center in Brazil. The new data center in São Paulo — SP3 — will have an initial first-phase investment of $76M with the ability for up to five additional phases and is scheduled to be finished in the first quarter of 2017. SP3's nearly 2,800 cabinets will double the company's inventory in Brazil.

Earlier this month Equinix announced that it will open four new International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers in Tokyo, Dallas, São Paulo and Sydney, to create more capacity for global companies to connect to their partners, customers and employees. These organic additions plus the recent acquisitions of Bit-isle in Japan and Telecity in EMEA will expand Equinix's global interconnection platform to nearly 150 data centers by the end of the year. By providing additional capacity in the coming year, Equinix continues to play a central role in advancing the digital economy's interconnected era, in which businesses are demanding increasing levels of interconnection to accelerate business performance.

"We continue to see increasing market demand for interconnection and colocation in Brazil. The new SP3 facility will meet these needs while giving Brazil companies the opportunity to leverage the full scale of Platform Equinix into 40 key markets globally as business needs evolve," said Karl Strohmeyer, president, Equinix Americas.

The SP3 data center brings additional data center capacity to support IT infrastructure requirements for local businesses and multi-nationals looking to expand into the Brazil market. This new capacity will address anticipated business needs for colocation projects in the State of São Paulo. Today more than 800 companies collocate in Equinix's Brazil data centers to connect to business partners and customers across their digital supply chains.

Equinix Brazil is home to many thriving, diverse business ecosystems including networks, financial services, government and enterprise. SP3 will also have connectivity to the Equinix Cloud Exchange™ which provides direct and secure access to Microsoft Azure and Office 365, as businesses across various industries are increasingly leveraging cloud infrastructure services for their IT needs.

SP3 will have over 215,000 sq ft of which, more than 90,000 sq ft will be colocation space. Approximately 13.3 megawatts of power will be available to customers and the data center will have a high-voltage substation and redundant lines to ensure greater reliability and stability than traditional medium-voltage lines.

Equinix Metro Connect™ will connect SP3 with another local Equinix data center, SP2, utilizing dark fiber between the sites which will provide  direct access to more than 1,150 networks and more than 6,300 companies globally at very low latencies.

Building on recent strides that Equinix has made on its global sustainability initiative, the new São Paulo data center will use innovative cooling technology which integrates air evaporative cooling solutions and indirect free cooling in order to reduce the use of electricity by the data center's air conditioning units. SP3 will also leverage a solar energy capture system which will be used to serve  the offices and common areas. By implementing the most efficient technology available in the market today, SP3 is expected to operate with a PUE below 1.35 once fully operational.

As the result of these energy efficiencies, SP3 is seeking a minimum  of LEED Silver certification in compliance with the sustainability criteria set out by the U.S. Green Building Council and will also have the Tier III Design and Facilities certifications.