Equinix Inc., a global digital infrastructure company, has opened its first International Business Exchange (IBX) data center in Chennai. Known as CN1, the facility is located in Siruseri on a nearly six-acre site and is designed to support both business digitization and artificial intelligence (AI) development in India.
Equinix has invested $69 million in the first phase of CN1, which provides 800 cabinets of capacity. Once fully developed, the site will accommodate up to 4,250 cabinets. The four-story facility is built with fault-tolerant design for high reliability and is engineered to deliver 99.999% uptime.
The Chennai center is interconnected with Equinix’s three existing IBX facilities in Mumbai, providing customers in southern India with access to a larger digital ecosystem. The company said this expansion will help businesses achieve secure, low-latency connectivity to partners, customers, and service providers.
The data center is also prepared for liquid cooling technology, which supports the high-density, compute-intensive workloads often required for AI and other advanced technologies.
“Our success in building the most interconnected ecosystem for cloud, carrier, content and enterprises in Mumbai will now be extended to customers in Tamil Nadu,” said Manoj Paul, managing director, India, Equinix. “Similarly, global enterprises planning to come closer to their customers in southern India now can leverage Equinix’s IBX facility in Chennai.”
The launch comes as Tamil Nadu strengthens its role as a hub for innovation, research, and AI-related investment. Chennai is emerging as one of India’s focal points for digital growth, with Equinix positioning CN1 to play a role in this transition.
Equinix currently hosts more than 300 companies in India, including network service providers and five internet exchanges. Its Mumbai campus already supports a strong cloud ecosystem, with direct connections to major providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud. Customers in Chennai will now be able to connect to these platforms through Equinix Fabric and Fabric Cloud Router, the company’s software-defined interconnection services.
The company said CN1 is part of its global commitment to sustainability. In 2024, Equinix reported achieving 96% renewable energy coverage across its operations worldwide, including India. The Chennai facility incorporates energy-efficient designs and will be backed by long-term investments in solar and wind power.
Globally, Equinix operates more than 270 data centers in 77 markets across 36 countries, serving over 10,000 businesses. In the Asia-Pacific region, it manages more than 60 facilities in countries including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore.
With CN1, Equinix aims to provide customers in southern India with scalable infrastructure to meet rising computational needs, particularly in AI and emerging technologies. The facility’s design enables businesses to adopt hybrid multicloud strategies while maintaining flexibility to scale with future demand.
[…] Equinix invests $69 million in first AI-ready data center in Chennai […]