Equinix, Inc. has announced the opening of its latest International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data center in São Paulo, known as SP3. The new $69 million USD facility, located in Santana de Parnaíba, supports the strong demand for interconnection and colocation services offered by Platform Equinix™ in Brazil. With the addition of SP3, Equinix currently operates five IBX data centers in Brazil.

Equinix is home to the densest concentration of network carriers in Brazil and is one of the largest hubs for financial exchange in Latin America.Its São Paulo data center sites are in close proximity to the Bovespa stock exchange, offering direct connectivity to a large number of financial firms.   

"Our continued growth in Brazil highlights strong demand for hybrid cloud and greater interconnection as enterprises are looking to move to a globally distributed architecture so they can better interconnect people, locations, clouds and data at the edge of corporate networks," said Karl Strohmeyer, president of Americas, Equinix.

The first phase of SP3 provides a total capacity of 725 cabinets. Upon completion of the multi-phase build out, the facility will provide a total capacity of 2,775 cabinets, doubling Equinix's available space in Brazil, and making SP3 the largest multi-tenant data center in Latin America.

With the addition of SP3, Equinix now operates five data centers in Brazil, including three in São Paulo and two in Rio De Janeiro. Equinix expects to add one additional IBX in São Paulo upon closing of the agreement with Verizon, announced in December 2016, to acquire 29 data centers across 15 metro areas in North and South America.

"Equinix is opening SP3, its largest data center in Brazil, which will double Equinix's capacity in Brazil.  SP3 is the largest multi-tenant datacenter we are aware of in Brazil and Latin America. With the underserved nature of the data center market in Brazil we believe that Equinix can encounter success with the new facility.  We also expect that Equinix may continue investing in Latin America and we wouldn't be surprised to see additional data center expansions by Equinix in the region over the next few years," said Jeff Paschke, research director, 451 Research. 

By utilizing Equinix Metro Connect™, customers in SP3 can easily and directly connect with customers in Equinix's SP2 IBX via low latency dark fiber links between the sites.

Equinix's São Paulo operations serve as a business hub for approximately 1,000 companies including 270 cloud and IT services companies and more than 70 telecommunications carriers, making it the most interconnected group of data centers in Brazil. Companies can also set up direct links to new submarine cable systems, including the Seabras-1 cable between Brazil and the U.S.

The new SP3 facility has already welcomed more than 30 customers, including Infobip, an international IT and telecommunications company that delivers a suite of messaging products to businesses.  With its expansion to Brazil Infobip is able to connect customers across the globe and store data locally for Brazilian and Latin American customers. In addition, SP3 will serve as a backup facility for Infobip's other data centers.

"All of our data centers around the world are interconnected and redundant. This allows us to ensure business continuity – and Equinix is an important part of this strategy. In addition, having a local facility will help us expand operations in the region, especially among companies within the financial market, which is also one of Equinix's main ecosystems," said Yuri Fiaschi, country manager, Brazil, Infopip.

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

By implementing the most efficient energy technology available in the market today, SP3 is designed with a PUE below 1.35 once fully operational.  Additionally, SP3 will be LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System™ Silver certified and has received the Tier III Design and Facilities certifications. These uptime certifications ensure the availability of Equinix facilities in Brazil and around the globe.