Equinix to expand digital infrastructure platform in Malaysia
Author: Isha Jain
Equinix has planned to open its first data centre in Kuala Lumpur in Q1 2024, following its expansion announcement last year to enter Malaysia with a data centre in Johor. The company’s expansion is expected to provide greater digital infrastructure capacity in Malaysia to address rising demand from local and global companies expanding in the country.
As Malaysia enters Phase 2 of its MyDIGITAL blueprint for a digital economy, demand for digital infrastructure is expected to remain robust. According to Synergy Research, Malaysia is already the third largest data centre colocation market in the ASEAN region, and is predicted to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 11% from 2022–2027. The company’s new facility aims to accelerate the digital vision and establish Malaysia as a hub for colocation in ASEAN and a regional digital economic powerhouse. The new facility in Kuala Lumpur, named KL1, together with the recently announced JH1 in Johor, will provide digital infrastructure that businesses need to capitalise on the country’s digital economy.
Jeremy Deutsch, President, Asia-Pacific, Equinix, says, “Over the past several years, we have witnessed Malaysia emerge as an increasingly strategic location for global digital infrastructure, and we believe it to be an attractive destination for data centre growth and investment. Following our initial investment in Johor, we are excited to add another data centre in Kuala Lumpur. By expanding platform Equinix in the two most strategic metros, we will enable Malaysian businesses, as well as multinationals with a presence in Malaysia, to leverage a trusted platform to bring together and interconnect the foundational infrastructure to power their success. We believe the two data centres will fuel Equinix’s existing data centre momentum and support Malaysia’s aspirations as a digitally driven connectivity hub.”
The KL1 IBX data centre will be located in Cyberjaya within Kuala Lumpur. Cyberjaya is a key part of the Multimedia Super Corridor in Malaysia, a government designated zone to promote and boost the country’s digital economy. The first phase will provide an initial capacity of 450 cabinets and colocation space of 1,300m². When fully built, it will provide a total of 900 cabinets and colocation space of 2,630m².
It will enable global networks, content providers and enterprises to exchange high volumes of internet traffic via Equinix Internet Exchange. Internet service providers will have access to new digital corridors to exchange data directly with other internet service providers.
KL1 and Equinix Fabric will enable customers to deploy their infrastructure to connect with cloud service providers, including Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, safeguarding their business-critical data in a private and secure environment.
In Asia-Pacific, Equinix currently operates 51 data centres in 13 metros across Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea and Singapore, with expansions announced in Indonesia and Malaysia.
