It was announced earlier this year that Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC, and Equinix were partnering up to build xScale data centres across Europe as part of a $1 billion joint venture. That joint venture has now formally begun operation, with the xScale data centres starting to come online. 

At the time of the announcement, Equinix confirmed that there would be a total of six facilities under the control of the joint venture, with two located in London, two in Frankfurt and one apiece in Amsterdam and Paris. While that’s still the case, not all of the xScale data centres are quite ready to come online. 

As part of the joint venture, Equinix sold its LD10 IBX facility to the joint venture, and a portion of that facility is now dedicated to hyperscale deployments. That portion is now formally online and will offer 10MW of capacity for xScale customers, with it now operating under the name LD13x xScale data centre. The rest of the data centre is being leased by Equinix for its retail colocation deployments, and will retain the original name. 

Also already online if the former Equinix PA8 IBX in Paris, which has also been sold to the joint venture. This facility has been renamed the PA8x xScale data centre, and while it is operational, only the first phase of the facility is available to xScale customers. That’s because the second and final phase isn’t scheduled for completion until Q4 2019, but once it’s fully online it will offer 14MW of total capacity. 

The data centres still waiting to come online include the two in Frankfurt, which should bring 10MW of capacity in Q3 2020 and an additional 8MW later down the road, and the second London facility. The second London facility will operate as the LD11x xScale data centre and will add 10MW of capacity for hyperscale customers in Q1 2021 when the initial phase opens, with an aim to eventually support 19MW of capacity when it’s fully expanded. 

Charles Meyers, president and CEO, Equinix, noted, “The formation of our JV with GIC is a strategic milestone for Equinix as we continue to deepen our relationships with the world’s largest cloud and hyperscale companies and help them meet their core workload deployment needs and gain proximity to the thriving business ecosystems available at Equinix. Similarly, as today’s businesses are increasingly moving to implement hybrid multicloud strategies for their digital infrastructure, Equinix serves as a unique on- and off-ramp to execute that strategy. We look forward to launching similar JVs in other operating regions and believe these efforts will continue to further differentiate Equinix as the trusted center of a cloud-first world.”