Equinix opens $69 million Chennai data centre to boost AI & cloud
Equinix has opened its first data centre in Chennai, known as CN1, expanding its digital infrastructure footprint within India.
Located in Siruseri on a nearly six-acre site, the CN1 data centre joins Equinix's three existing facilities in Mumbai, creating a network aimed at improving business digitisation, resilience, and support for artificial intelligence (AI) developments across the country.
Facility details
The company has invested $69 million in the facility's first phase, which provides space for up to 800 cabinets. Future development will increase capacity to 4,250 cabinets. The CN1 data centre is engineered for 99.999% uptime, a standard reflecting high target reliability for enterprise use. The site includes Equinix's suite of interconnection services such as Equinix Fabric, which supports hybrid multicloud deployments and direct links to business ecosystems.
CN1's design includes support for liquid cooling technology, intended to handle high-density, compute-intensive workloads associated with AI and other advanced applications. This prepares the facility to host the next generation of enterprise and technology workloads, aligning with developments in India's digital economy.
Supporting India's digital growth
India continues to invest in technological innovation, positioning itself as a centre for AI, quantum computing, and blockchain. These demands require increased data processing and computing resources, which Equinix's expansion aims to address. Equinix currently hosts more than 300 companies in India, with its Mumbai data centres already providing access to native on-ramps for major cloud providers including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud. The new CN1 facility in Chennai offers customers in southern India lower-latency access to these services and business partners.
Manoj Paul, Managing Director, India, Equinix, commented:
We are delighted to announce the launch of our state-of-the-art IBX data centre, CN1, in Chennai, marking Equinix's expansion in India and a pivotal step in advancing the nation's digitalisation 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.
Sustainability features
Equinix states that CN1 includes several measures to enhance energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact. The site supports liquid cooling readiness for AI deployment, fault-tolerant designs for continual operations, and multiple diverse fibre paths to ensure resilient connectivity. Globally, Equinix achieved 96% renewables coverage in its operations, including India, and has committed to long-term investments in renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
The launch of CN1 also aligns with Tamil Nadu's strategic ambitions to build its innovation, research, and technology sectors. The location of the facility, on State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT) Ltd land in Siruseri, is positioned around 28 km from Chennai's Central Business District and is close to planned submarine cable landing sites, further strengthening its role as a connectivity hub.
Connectivity and regional presence
Equinix's interconnection services at CN1, including software-defined solutions such as Equinix Fabric and Equinix Fabric Cloud Router, offer secure and direct connections between customers, partners, and multicloud providers. This approach supports businesses in deploying scalable infrastructure for AI and other data-heavy applications.
The facility's launch brings Equinix's portfolio in the Asia-Pacific region to over 60 data centres spread across key metropolitan areas in countries including Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, and Singapore. Globally, it now operates more than 270 data centres in 77 markets in 36 countries, providing digital infrastructure and interconnection services to over 10,000 businesses.
CN1's construction marks a significant stage in the development of India's data centre landscape, reflecting increasing international and domestic demand for secure, scalable digital infrastructure to support business growth and technology adoption.
