REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — The digital infrastructure company Equinix and the Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC are forming a joint venture and investing $525 million to build and operate two hyperscale data centers in South Korea.
The two Equinix xScale data centers under the joint venture, to be named SL2x and SL3x, are expected to provide over 45 MW of power capacity to serve the “core workload deployment needs” of hyperscale companies, including major cloud computing providers, according to Equinix last month.
Equinix intends for the two xScale data centers in South Korea to allow hyperscale providers to add core deployments to their existing access point footprints at Equinix, enabling their growth on a single platform.
The platform can “immediately span” 65 global metros and offer direct interconnection to customers and strategic partners.
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The company believes that with more hyperscale providers expanding in South Korea to support companies digital infrastructure needs, the cloud computing market in the country will “flourish.”
To date, seven xScale data centers are open globally, with more under development.
The joint venture with GIC will bring the xScale data center portfolio to more than $8 billion across 36 facilities, with over 720 MW of power capacity when completed.
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The cloud market in South Korea
The cloud IT infrastructure market in South Korea is expected to reach a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15% over the next five years, reaching about $1.86 billion in sales by 2025, according to IDC.
Seoul will have the most interconnection bandwidth from hyperscale providers within Asia-Pacific by 2024, according to “The Global Interconnection Index,” volume 5, by Equinix.
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