The international business exchange facility, which is set to open in Q3 2019, will provide interconnection and colocation services to businesses in the region.
The SL1 IBX data centre is Equinix’s first in South Korea, which is one of the 15 largest economies in the world, marking a further expansion of the company’s investment into South-East Asia. In the last three years, Equinix has spent more than $800 million in the Asia Pacific region.
Korea is one of the world’s most advanced countries for ICT and telecoms, with all three of its major operators – SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus, deploying live commercial 5G networks at the end of 2018. These are set to be expanded nationwide in March, providing an opportunity which Equinix said it hopes to capitalise on.
The facility will be located at Sangam, also known as Digital Media City, near Seoul’s central business district, offering an initial capacity of 550 cabinets.
Equinix provides customers with access to more than 1,800 networks and over 2,900 cloud, IT and system integrator services globally. This strategic expansion to Seoul will help address the rising demand for carrier-neutral, network-dense data center services from companies in South Korea, the data centre giant claimed.
Samuel Lee, President, Equinix Asia-Pacific: “Seoul, the fourth-largest metropolitan economy globally, is an important connection point for both regional and global businesses, and we are excited to expand our global platform to this new metro in South Korea.
“Our operations will enable customers to securely deploy their infrastructure, reach global ecosystem partners and scale their businesses at the digital edge, all within our carrier-neutral IBX data centers that are managed with global standards of operational excellence. We look forward to helping our global customers expand into this key market, while also helping South Korean companies accelerate their digital transformation initiatives via Platform Equinix.”
