Equinix investing in new green Helsinki data centre

Equinix, the global interconnection and data center company, has this week announced it will build a new International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data center in Helsinki, Finland. The data center – called HE7 – will provide interconnection and colocation to businesses to support their IT transformation initiatives. The first phase of the Helsinki data center will cost approximately $20M (€17M) and scheduled to open Q2 2019.

The new data center supports increasing demand for interconnection bandwidth capacity from local and multinational enterprises looking to gain a competitive advantage in the digital economy. These data centers are part of Platform Equinix™ which is comprised of 200 data centers in 52 markets globally.

Highlights/ Key Facts

Helsinki is a digital gateway bridging the gap between Russia, the Baltic states and the rest of Europe through direct digital routes. This makes Helsinki an ideal location for companies that offer solutions globally and need interconnection to Cloud Service Providers(CSPs) or business ecosystems to address changing business needs.
The new HE7 data center will enable customers to interconnect securely with 135+ businesses in Finland with an emphasis on leading financial services and content and digital media companies. HE7 will add 250 cabinets in its initial phase and expand to 1,475 cabinets at full build. The data center will use 100% green energy.
HE7 will also provide direct, secure and dynamic software-defined interconnection through the Equinix Cloud Exchange™ Fabric to over 1,300 businesses including some of the largest CSPs including Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Oracle Cloud. Customers can take advantage of scalability, agility and connectivity over a self-service portal or API and through a single port, can discover and reach the aggregation of companies and ecosystems at Equinix on demand, locally or across metros. Additional connectivity is available via the Equinix Internet Exchange which allows drivers of internet traffic, including ISPs and content providers, to easily and effectively peer traffic and expand operations globally, as well as through Metro Connect.
The investment in HE7 will also support the rapidly increasing private exchange of data between businesses – also known as interconnection. According to Equinix's Global Interconnection Index (GXI) Volume 2, Interconnection Bandwidth is expected to grow 48% per annum in Europe to reach 1,900+ Tbps by 2021, contributing to around 23% of Interconnection Bandwidth globally. The GXI states the importance of interconnections as business models become increasingly distributed and dependent on real time engagement of many users, partners and services provides.
Helsinki's strategic location is reinforced by strong infrastructure in Europe including subsea cables which are key to the flow of data into and out of northern Europe. This includes connectivity to the Cinia C-Lion1 submarine data cable between Finland and Germany. Equinix customers can benefit from a capacity of 144 terabytes per second and a latency below 20 milliseconds between Helsinkiand Frankfurt.

Quotes

Sami Holopainen, Managing Director of Equinix Finland:
"Many of Equinix's local customers in Helsinki are looking to grow their presence as they require interconnection to cloud and SaaS providers to support IT transformation goals. As these businesses consider their options they realize the value of a future-proof environment for their digital journey. Platform Equinix is more than 200 data centers – it is a platform for innovation."

source equinix

Industry: Data Centre News