Digital infrastructure company Equinix opened its first International Business Exchange data center in Chennai on Thursday with an initial investment of $69 million. The CN1 facility in Siruseri will provide 800 cabinets initially and expand to 4,250 cabinets when fully developed.
The data center spans nearly six acres and features 99.999% uptime reliability with liquid cooling technology support for high-density, compute-intensive AI workloads. The facility connects to Equinix’s Mumbai campus comprising three data centers.
“We are delighted to announce the launch of our state-of-the-art IBX data center, CN1, in Chennai, marking Equinix’s expansion in India and a pivotal step in advancing the nation’s digitalization journey. 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. Similarly, global enterprises planning to come closer to their customers in southern India now can leverage Equinix’s IBX facility in Chennai. This milestone highlights our commitment to empowering India’s position as a global technology hub while ensuring sustainability and innovation remain at the core of our operations. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the Tamil Nadu Government in general and Industries Department, Guidance and SIPCOT for their unwavering support throughout our planning and construction period, making this vision a reality. With CN1’s cutting-edge capabilities, we look forward to enabling businesses in Chennai and across India to leverage future-ready, scalable and digital infrastructure that supports sustainability to expand their business in Tamil Nadu and globally,” said Manoj Paul, Managing Director, India, Equinix.
The four-story building incorporates fault-tolerant design, multiple fiber paths, and renewable energy commitment through solar and wind investments. The facility offers Equinix Fabric and Fabric Cloud Router interconnection services for hybrid multicloud infrastructure.
Equinix currently hosts over 300 companies in India, including network service providers and five internet exchanges. The Mumbai campus provides cloud ecosystem access to Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud.
The Chennai location in State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu land sits 28 kilometers from the Central Business District near anticipated submarine cable landing sites. The facility enables low-latency access to Equinix’s digital ecosystem for customers in Tamil Nadu.
India focuses on becoming a global AI leader through investments in emerging technologies including quantum computing, blockchain and edge computing. These developments require expanded data center capacity, positioning the CN1 launch as supporting these technologies.
Equinix operates over 270 data centers across 77 markets in 36 countries, serving more than 10,000 businesses. In Asia-Pacific, the company maintains over 60 data centers across Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore.
The company achieved 96% renewables coverage across global operations in 2024, including India operations.