Equinix, a global interconnection and data centre company, has announced a new International Business Exchange (IBX) site at its London Slough campus. UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, has welcomed the £90m project which contributes to a total new investment in the UK’s digital infrastructure of £295m.

The new flagship data centre, named LD7, is part of a fleet of new and expanded facilities on Equinix’s London Slough campus, and is due to open in early 2019. This new infrastructure will bring the company’s UK portfolio to 12 IBXs and supports increasing demand for capacity to handle growing volumes of data, including increasing traffic coming out of the City of London.

“Equinix’s investment reflects the growing demand for digital financial services in the City of London, and is a vote of confidence in its future as the world’s premier financial hub. This is exactly where we want to be heading”, said Theresa May.

Including current expansion projects, Equinix will have invested over £940 million to build and expand its presence in the London metro area. The campus processes a quarter of all of Europe’s equity trading, and connects the City of London with the rest of the world.

Equinix’s data centres, referred to as IBXs to reflect the rapid exchange of data between businesses globally, allow more than 1,000 firms in London, including capital market firms, insurers and e-payments companies, to process transactions securely. Companies such as Nasdaq rely upon Equinix sites for proximity to customers and partners in the City, which require high performance and rapid connectivity.

Businesses and cloud service providers depend on Equinix and its 200 global data centres to facilitate private data exchange between them, and away from the public internet – a process known as interconnection.

This form of data exchange will soon be 10 times as big as the internet, and is growing twice as fast. Businesses hoping to survive in this digital era must be interdependent and cloud-enabled, operating at the digital edge, where commerce, population centres and digital ecosystems meet. This enables companies to achieve fast and secure connectivity between their dispersed employees, partners and users worldwide, gaining a competitive advantage.  

Equinix recently released the second volume of its new annual report, the Global Interconnection Index (GXI), mapping the growth of global data. The GXI shows that regardless of the UK’s departure from the EU, London is projected to be the largest market in Europe with regards to data, even if Frankfurt is the fastest growing market in the world.

Russell Poole, managing director UK, Equinix commented, “London is one of the most important connection points in the world and this is expected to continue post-Brexit as the city continues to play a crucial role in powering the global digital economy.”

“Our decision to invest again in the UK’s digital infrastructure reflects our confidence that London will remain a leader in the global digital economy, regardless of the outcome of the negotiations over the UK’s departure from the European Union.”