Equinix has announced plans to build its third data center in Mumbai.
The company this week said it was to invest more than $86 million developing the facility, which will sit on a four-acre plot.
To be located in Mumbai’s Commercial district (Chandivali area), the new MB3 International Business Exchange (IBX) will be adjacent to Equinix’s existing MB2 facility.
The first phase of MB3 is scheduled to open in Q2 2024. It will provide an initial capacity of more than 1,375 cabinets, and more than 4,150 cabinets when fully built out – more than double the company’s existing footprint in the city.
Manoj Paul, managing director of Equinix India, said: “We are focused on further investments in building the infrastructure in India to enable our existing and new customers in India to launch their services closer to their consumers. The close proximity of MB3 at Chandivali Farm Road to our existing data centers will enable us to form a robust campus so that our customers can leverage the dense ecosystems from any of our data centers in Mumbai.”
On LinkedIn, Paul said the new facility would be the ‘largest Data Center in India focusing on retail enterprise customers and interconnection.’
JLL acted as the exclusive real estate advisor to Equinix in connection with the land transaction in Mumbai.
Equinix entered the Indian market through the acquisition of GPX Global Systems. First announced in August 2020 and closed in September 2021, the deal saw the colo giant pick up two data centers in Mumbai for $161 million.
Dubbed Equinix MB1 and MB2, the two facilities total more than 90,000 square feet (8,200 sqm) of colocation space and an initial 1,350 cabinets, with an additional 500 cabinets to be built out.
India's first Tier IV design-certified facility, GPX Mumbai1 is a 30,000 sq ft (2,800 sqm) data center, while Mumbai2 will add 60,000 sq ft (5,600 sqm) when it is fully built out. Opened in December 2019, it too has an Uptime Tier IV design certification.
Manoj Paul, who previously led the India operation of GPX, was appointed as managing director of Equinix India.
Earlier this year, Equinix acquired a 5.5-acre land parcel in Chennai for $9 million.
