Digital infrastructure company Equinix announced it has opened its first International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre in South Africa, and is already onboarding new customers and partners.
The JN1 IBX facility, located in Germiston, Johannesburg, provides over 1,900 square meters of colocation space in its initial phase, which will be expanded to 9,515 square meters when the site is fully built out.
In practical terms, JN1 features 700 cabinets now, with an initial capacity of 4MW. Once the expansion is completed, the site will host 3,475 cabinets and a total capacity of 20MW.
“The new site presents a truly unique opportunity for South Africans as it places us firmly on the map and will be a key interconnection hub on the continent to some of the fastest growing countries and businesses in the world,” said Sandile Dube, Managing Director for South Africa at Equinix, in a statement.
According to South African digital news site ITWeb, JN1 features new deployments from Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Intelys Technology Group, Seacom, WorkOnline Communications, and INX-ZA’s Johannesburg Internet Exchange.
Equinix first announced plans to invest US$160 million in the new Johannesburg IBX facility at the end of 2022.
Earlier that year, Equinix officially entered Africa’s data centre space in April with the completion of its acquisition of MainOne for an enterprise value of US$320 million. That deal added three operational data centres in Nigeria, Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire to Equinix’s portfolio. Another Nigerian data centre opened in April 2022. In November last year, MainOne launched an expanded carrier-neutral data centre in Côte d’Ivoire.
In February 2024, various media outlets reported that Equinix plans to invest US$390 million in building more data centres in Africa over the next five years.
