Equinix plans to spend US$124 million to build its sixth data centre in Hong Kong, expanding its storage capacity to cater to the growing demand in the Greater Bay Area while other international tech firms reassess their footprints in the city.
The new facility will be located in a building Tsuen Wan designed to house data centres, and Equinix plans to have it operational by the first quarter of 2026, the Redwood City, California-based company announced on Tuesday. It will be the company’s largest investment in Hong Kong in the past decade, said Equinix Hong Kong’s managing director Joanne Hon.
The first phase of its new facility will offer 1,000 cabinets, and a total of 3,550 cabinets upon completion. The company referred to the sum it is pouring into the facility as an “initial investment”, saying the full investment and buildout timeline have yet to be determined.
“Continuing to expand in Hong Kong is a demonstration that our customers are really looking for infrastructure in Hong Kong to support their digital transformation,” Equinix’s Asia-Pacific president Jeremy Deutsch told the Post on Tuesday.
The Hong Kong expansion comes “on the back of the requests” from network operators and financial services companies looking to scale their services, according to Deutsch. Traffic through the company’s internet exchange service has grown 50 per cent over the last 12 months in Hong Kong, he added.
The data centre expansion also comes amid an artificial intelligence (AI) boom, in which companies are racing to build and offer generative AI products.
Technologies including direct-to-chip liquid cooling in the new facility will allow for packing more power into each cabinet with greater energy efficiency, features that could make the facility more appealing to AI service operators, according to Deutsch.
Equinix is one of the largest data centre operators in the world, making its investment notable at a time when other multinational firms, especially technology companies, have been pulling back from the city to hedge against geopolitical risks amid rising US-China tensions.
In 2023, 4,200 multinational firms had their regional headquarters in Singapore, dwarfing the 1,336 in Hong Kong, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence report in February. The number in Hong Kong was down by 75 from 2022, according to government data.
Equinix was looking to sell a minority stake in its Hong Kong facilities to capitalise on the growing demand for digital infrastructure amid the AI boom, Reuters reported last month.
Equinix does not comment on “rumours and speculation”, Deutsch said, adding that the new data centre shows it remains committed to Hong Kong.
The company will continue to support “Chinese organisations using Hong Kong as a launch pad to the rest of the world, as well as many global headquartered organisations using Hong Kong as a first location to support China”, Deutsch said.
