Equinix Selects Chennai for its First IBX Data Centre

Tamil Nadu is quietly emerging as a hub for innovation, research, and AI investment, with Chennai taking the lead.

A testament to this progress is the recent launch of Equinix, Inc.’s first International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre in Chennai, CN1, which aims to accelerate India’s digital evolution and expand its AI ecosystem. 

Strategically located on nearly six acres in Siruseri, CN1 will be interconnected with Equinix’s Mumbai campus, home to three IBX data centres, providing robust support for business digitisation, resilience, and AI development across India.

However, this is not the first one in TN.

Previously, Sify Technologies Limited, an IT and communications giant based out of Chennai, had inaugurated the Chennai 02 data centre campus. The campus is designed for a capacity of over 130 megawatts (MW) and has a power density of eight to 25 kilowatts (kW) for air-cooled racks and up to 200 kW for liquid-cooled workloads.

CtrlS Datacenters’ new data centre park was also recently inaugurated in Chennai’s Ambattur Industrial Estate.

How Equinix Data Centre can Change Tamil Nadu

Built with an initial investment of $69 million, CN1 opens with 800 cabinets and will scale up to 4,250 cabinets. The four-story facility is engineered for 99.999% uptime and designed to handle high-density, compute-intensive workloads through liquid cooling technology.

Manoj Paul, MD, Equinix India told AIM that their Chennai project strengthens India’s digital backbone and positions Tamil Nadu as a hub for the nation’s technological growth.

Equinix has enhanced its CN1 facility with liquid cooling readiness to support AI-driven workloads, diverse fiber paths to strengthen network resilience, and renewable energy integration through solar and wind investments. 

In addition, it offers interconnection services like Equinix Fabric and Fabric Cloud Router, enabling enterprises to build secure, hybrid multicloud infrastructures with greater flexibility and efficiency.

CN1’s proximity to anticipated submarine cable landing sites also gives it an edge in delivering low-latency international connectivity, vital for applications like AI, cloud services, and financial transactions.

Globally, the company operates over 270 data centres across 77 markets in 36 countries, serving more than 10,000 enterprises. 

In Asia-Pacific, it runs 60+ facilities across major metros including Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, and India. By 2024, the company achieved 96% renewable energy coverage worldwide, with Indian operations already powered by 100% renewables.

Benefits for AI Development

CN1 is designed as an AI-ready, liquid-cooling–enabled data centre that brings low-latency access to cloud service providers, OTTs, CDNs, telecom firms, and the financial ecosystem via Equinix Fabric and Fabric Cloud Router. By supporting hybrid multicloud infrastructure, the facility empowers enterprises to scale seamlessly and securely.

“This strategic placement is critical for reducing latency, as it enables direct access to international submarine cable networks, which are vital for high-speed, low-latency data transmission across global routes,” Paul said.

He added that customers can also access on-ramps to major cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud via Equinix Fabric.

Distinctive Factor

Unlike traditional facilities that provide only basic rack space, CN1 offers mission-critical uptime (99.999%), liquid cooling readiness, diverse fiber paths, and renewable energy integration.

“Enterprises also gain access to Equinix’s global ecosystem of 10,000+ companies and 3,000 cloud and IT providers, with direct connectivity to AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud,” Paul said.

“By combining AI-ready infrastructure, global-scale interconnection, and sustainability leadership, CN1 far surpasses traditional colocation facilities,” he added.

Equinix is aligning its growth with India’s ambition to be a global leader in AI and emerging technologies like quantum computing, blockchain, and edge computing.

“We are committed to empowering India’s position as a global technology hub, with sustainability and innovation at the core of our operations,” Paul emphasised.

A key part of this expansion is Equinix’s Distributed AI strategy, which optimally places workloads across training, inference, and privacy-preserving environments to minimise latency and improve performance.

Equinix is accelerating investments across India as part of 59 strategic initiatives in 34 global markets, enabling hybrid multicloud infrastructure through services like Equinix Fabric and Fabric Cloud Router. 

“We look forward to enabling businesses across India to access future-ready, scalable, and sustainable digital infrastructure,” Paul concluded.

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