Equinix, GIC lay out $525 million for hyperscale data centres in S Korea

Equinix and GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, are expanding their teamup and have signed a joint venture agreement to form a US$525-million joint venture that will develop and operate two xScale data centres in Seoul, South Korea. 

GIC will own an 80% equity interest in the joint venture, and Equinix will own the remaining 20% equity interest. The joint venture is expected to close in within this quarter, pending regulatory approval and other closing conditions.

This new joint venture will bring the global xScale data centre portfolio to more than US$8 billion across 36 facilities, and an expected greater than 720 megawatts of power capacity when completed and fully built. 

“Korea and the broader Asia-Pacific market are both enablers and beneficiaries as organisations prioritize digital transformation,” said Charles Meyers, president and CEO of Equinix.

“To address demand for cloud and digital infrastructure, we have continued to invest in the region through the expansion of International Business Exchange (IBX) capacity and locations, as well as the expansion of our hyperscale program, xScale, in Australia, and now Korea,” said Meyers.

To be named “SL2x” and “SL3x,” the two facilities under the joint venture are expected to provide more than 45 MW of power capacity to serve the unique core workload deployment needs of hyperscale companies. 

With more hyperscale providers expanding in Korea to support businesses’ digital infrastructure needs, the cloud computing market in the country is expected to flourish. The Global Interconnection Index (GXI Vol. 5), an annual market study recently published by Equinix, estimates that Seoul will have the most interconnection bandwidth from hyperscale providers within Asia-Pacific by 2024.

So far, seven xScale data centers have opened globally, with more currently under development. The establishment of xScale data centres in South Korea will allow hyperscale providers to add core deployments to their existing access point footprints at Equinix, enabling their growth on a single platform that can immediately span 65 global metros and offer direct interconnection to their customers and strategic business partners.

With this xScale expansion, global hyperscale providers — including Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Service, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud — can continue to grow at Equinix, in close proximity to an ecosystem of more than 10,000 customers on its growing platform of more than 235 data centers around the world.

Also, the two new xScale facilities in Seoul will align with Equinix’s Future First sustainability strategy and 100% renewable energy goal. Equinix has operated with 100% renewable energy in Korea since 2020.