Amet Novillo

Equinix has established itself as the world’s digital infrastructure company helping to connect and power a more sustainable digital world.

What are the main growth opportunities in the Mexican telecom and internet industries?

Equinix is the world’s digital infrastructure company that provides a trusted platform for digital infrastructure leaders to bring together and interconnect the foundational infrastructure that powers success and enable their customers to access all the right places, partners, and possibilities they need to accelerate advantage. We have 240-plus data centers worldwide and are present in 71 markets in 32 countries and six continents. In North and South America, Equinix has 85-plus data centers, strategically sited in Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico, and the US. Equinix arrived in Mexico in 2020 with the acquisition of three data center facilities: two in Querétaro and one in Monterrey. The data centers strategically located in Querétaro, outside of seismic zones without flood risk, offer multiple diverse fiber entry points that include five network service providers currently operating within each data center. Customers in Mexico City can mobilize to connect to their networks locally now, while other customers aiming to expand their colocation footprint to Mexico can broaden their ecosystems and connect to the Infomart™ Data Center in Dallas, the NAP of the Americas facility in Miami. Equinix serves over 10,000 customers worldwide and is trusted by Fortune 500 to connect with other leading companies in the world’s most active enterprise and service provider ecosystems. Equinix has invested around USD2 billion since it started operating in Latin America in 2011 in Brazil. The figure sums up all acquisitions and expansions across the region, including the USD200-million investment announced in 2021 for expansions in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Bogotá, and Querétaro, and the company expansion to Chile and Peru with the USD705-million acquisition of four data centers in 2022, which represents an investment of almost USD1 billion from 2021-2022. Today, we have almost 15 data centers across five countries in Latin America and we expect to continue growing and investing in the region.

When will you begin construction on the land you acquired in Monterrey and Querétaro?

Our MX3 data center will be our first xScale data center in Mexico, and it is close to completion. In the case of the Monterrey project, although we already have the land, we are in the definition and design stage, after which we will have greater visibility of the next stage, which will start with its construction. In Querétaro, we are in the last phase of the MX2 data center expansion, which should be completed in 2023.

How much demand do you foresee in Mexico for data centers?

The digital acceleration in countries like Colombia, Brazil and Mexico shows up clearly in the Global Interconnection Index (GXI) 2023, an annual market study published by Equinix. The GXI Vol. 6 benchmark forecasts interconnection bandwidth in the Americas to increase at a CAGR of 39% through 2025, making the Americas the fast-growing region in the world. Going digital will require expertise, investments, and extensive coordination among the multiple stakeholders.

How are you ensuring the energy supply for the projects you are investing in?

At Equinix, our purpose is to protect, connect, and power a more sustainable digital world. We design, build, and operate our data centers with high energy-efficiency standards and a long-term goal of using 100% clean and renewable energy for our global platform. We have made it our goal to reach 100% renewable energy coverage across our global data center operations. Achieving this will not only help us shrink our own carbon footprint, but also help our customers green their digital supply chains. In 2021, our renewable coverage was 95%, our highest rate so far. We have an excellent relationship with the Mexican state entities in terms of discovering power availability. That helps us to assure our operations. In that way, we mitigate numerous power-related problems. Thus, the public sector gives us information regarding their scheduled power investments across various regions.