Equinix opens first data center in Chennai, expanding India footprint

CHENNAI - Equinix, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQIX), a $76.85 billion market cap data center giant with annual revenues of $8.93 billion, has opened its first data center in Chennai, India, marking the company’s expansion beyond its existing Mumbai operations. The new International Business Exchange (IBX) facility, named CN1, represents an initial investment of $69 million. According to InvestingPro analysis, Equinix maintains a GOOD financial health score, supporting its aggressive expansion strategy.

Located in Siruseri, Tamil Nadu, the facility will provide 800 cabinets of capacity in its first phase, with plans to eventually support 4,250 cabinets. The data center is built on a nearly six-acre plot and will be interconnected with Equinix’s Mumbai campus, which currently consists of three data centers. This expansion aligns with the company’s steady revenue growth of 5.48% and robust EBITDA of $3.77 billion.

CN1 is designed to support high-density, compute-intensive workloads with liquid cooling technology capabilities, which the company describes as essential for handling AI applications. The facility offers a full suite of Equinix interconnection services, including Equinix Fabric, and is engineered for 99.999% uptime reliability.

"This milestone highlights our commitment to empowering India’s position as a global technology hub," said Manoj Paul, Managing Director, India, Equinix, in a press release statement.

The Chennai facility is positioned approximately 28 kilometers from the city’s Central Business District and near anticipated submarine cable landing sites, according to the company.

Equinix currently works with more than 300 companies in India, including network service providers and five internet exchanges. Its Mumbai campus hosts cloud ecosystem connections to major providers including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud.

Globally, Equinix operates more than 270 data centers across 77 markets in 36 countries. In the Asia-Pacific region, the company’s portfolio includes more than 60 data centers across markets including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, and Singapore.

The company reports that it reached 96% renewable energy coverage across its global operations, including India, in 2024.

In other recent news, Equinix has delivered a solid second-quarter performance, with revenue aligning with JPMorgan’s estimates and surpassing expectations in adjusted EBITDA and AFFO metrics. This prompted JPMorgan to raise its price target for Equinix from $935 to $940, while maintaining an Overweight rating. In contrast, CFRA downgraded Equinix from Buy to Hold, citing a more conservative risk assessment but maintaining their $850 price target. Additionally, Equinix announced a strategic partnership with several next-generation nuclear technology providers to develop new power sources for its global data centers, addressing growing electricity demands. On the corporate governance front, Equinix appointed Dr. Yanbing Li to its Board of Directors, bringing valuable experience from her previous roles at Datadog, Aurora, and Google. Meanwhile, DocuSign received a Market Outperform rating from Citizens JMP, with a price target of $124. The firm highlighted positive feedback from industry sources, noting DocuSign’s ease of sale and clear return on investment. These developments reflect ongoing strategic moves and analyst evaluations impacting both Equinix and DocuSign.

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