Equinix, Inc. has announced it has purchased four parcels of land spanning 34.5 acres in Loudon County, Virginia, proximate to Equinix's current Ashburn data center campus. The acquisition of this property will provide Equinix with room to build multiple new greenfield International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers in this densely interconnected location.

The four parcels, purchased for $34.5 million, are proximate to the main Equinix campus in Ashburn, at the corner of Waxpool Road and Loudoun County Parkway.

"Northern Virginia is the largest multi-tenant datacenter (MTDC) market in the U.S. by operational square feet and will continue to grow rapidly, as several new facilities are expected to come online in the next one to two years. The market has seen consistently strong demand, enabling providers like Equinix to fill large builds quickly. Northern Virginia not only attracts datacenter tenants from all over the globe interested in connectivity, but providers there serve government agencies and local businesses," said Kelly Morgan, research vice president, Services, 451 Research.

Equinix's 10 IBX data centers in the Washington, D.C. metro area cover more than 500,000 sq ft and serve 850+ customers, representing the largest Internet exchange point in North America and one of the largest in the world.

The Equinix facilities house rich ecosystems that allow network and content providers, cloud, and IT services providers, and enterprise and government customers to quickly and efficiently exchange critical data with their customers and partners as they interconnect at the digital edge.

"The increasing pace of the shift to digital is having a significant impact on global businesses, pushing their IT operations closer to the digital edge where their customers, partners and employees are located. The acquisition of this property will enable Equinix to accommodate the growing number of global companies that are solving the digital edge through interconnection with the robust ecosystem of strategic business partners located at Equinix's Ashburn campus," said Karl Strohmeyer, president, Americas, Equinix.

In October 2015, Equinix announced the groundbreaking of its North Ashburn campus, located in close proximity to its existing data center campus in the area. Upon completion, this expansion will encompass five new facilities with more than one million square feet of new space.

The acquisition of the Ashburn property is a continuation of Equinix's strategy to purchase land and buildings to increase ownership of Equinix assets. Over the last four quarters, Equinix has purchased land to expand key campuses in Ashburn, Silicon Valley and Chicago, and it has purchased Equinix IBX buildings in Amsterdam, Paris, and Rio de Janeiro.