REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Oct. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), the global interconnection and data center company, today announced that it will open the company's second Bulgarian International Business Exchange™ (IBX^®) data center in Q1 2019. The $19M data center in the capital Sofia—called SO2—will support Bulgarian companies in their journey to transform their businesses through interconnection with digital supply chain partners, cloud adoption, and access to new markets around the World.

Highlights/Key Facts

• Bulgaria is a strategic location within the Balkans with access to the EU, Turkey and the Caucasus. The SO2 IBX data center will meet customer demand by providing approximately 350 cabinets in the first phase of build out with the opportunity to add 1,100 cabinets in subsequent phases. It will be the second Equinix data center in Sofia which is already home to 100+ companies including cloud service providers, network service providers, enterprises and content and digital media companies, who use Equinix's global interconnection platform of 200 data centers around the world to connect to business partners and customers across their digital supply chains.
• Today's service providers and enterprises must expand their capacity and capabilities for digital as they re-architect their IT. Companies can extend network infrastructure to the edge and enhance workload performance by shortening the distance between digital services and users. The SO2 data center will provide a secure environment for local businesses and multinationals who are looking to expand into Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Additionally, SO2 will have direct connectivity to the Bulgarian Internet Exchange (BIX).
• Direct and private connectivity to strategic cloud service providers is essential as digital transformation fuels higher demand for localized digital services at the edge. According to the Global Interconnection Index, a market study published by Equinix, Interconnection between Enterprises and Cloud and IT Providers is projected to grow 98% per annum through 2021, supporting businesses building out new digital services and migrating existing workloads to third-party cloud platforms.
• SO2 will use 100 percent green energy, a practice that Equinix's original data center in Sofia—SO1—has leveraged since 2016. Equinix announced in 2015 its commitment to 100 percent clean and renewable energy for its entire global footprint. Through ongoing development of partnerships Equinix continues to deploy innovative new sustainable technologies including solar, wind and fuel cells, to make this commitment a reality.

Quotes:

• Lyubomir Rusanov, CEO, SuperHosting.BG:

"SuperHosting.BG offers hosting services to more than 200,000 websites. The quality and continuity of services are of great importance to us. In order to guarantee them, we have been trusting Equinix Bulgaria and using their reliable colocation services for over seven years now. The opening of their second data center will help us meet the growing demands of our clients in Bulgaria, as well as abroad."

• Diana Stefanova, Managing Director EMEA R&D Site and Strategic Business Development integrated solutions, VMware:

"The VMWare office in Sofia is the main R&D and innovation hub of the company in the EMEA region and is among the top three key strategic development centers for VMware worldwide. Therefore, the reliability of services in Sofia is critical for the VMWare Bulgaria R&D business operations. At the same time the VMWare Bulgaria R&D business operations needed to scale the business and find a prominent partner in Eastern Europe that could meet these needs. By leveraging Equinix's global interconnection platform with 99.9999% uptime, we've been able to not only reach new markets, but also accelerate our business performance."

• Zdravko Nikolov, Managing Director, Bulgaria:

"Equinix's presence in Bulgaria has been met with strong customer demand, as businesses increase their IT consumption to keep pace with the growing digital economy. We are excited to now offer state-of-the-art data center space locally with global capabilities and reach into 52 markets on Platform Equinix."

• Eric Schwartz, President, Equinix EMEA:

"Data center colocation provides a powerful level of direct interconnection and empowers enterprises to react in real time, adapt quickly to change and leverage digital ecosystems to create new value and growth. The new SO2 data center in Sofia will provide local businesses and multinationals with the latest interconnection options to accelerate business performance and support their IT transformation initiatives."

Additional Resources

• Workload Transformation Drives Increasing Off-Premise Deployments, Propelling Growth for Equinix [IDC report]
• Colocation-Based Interconnection Will Serve as the 'Glue' for Advanced Digital Business Applications [Gartner report]

About Equinix

Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX) connects the world's leading businesses to their customers, employees and partners inside the most-interconnected data centers. In 52 markets worldwide, Equinix is where companies come together to realize new opportunities and accelerate their business, IT and cloud strategies. www.equinix.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from expectations discussed in such forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, the challenges of acquiring, operating and constructing IBX data centers and developing, deploying and delivering Equinix services; unanticipated costs or difficulties relating to the integration of companies we have acquired or will acquire into Equinix; a failure to receive significant revenue from customers in recently built out or acquired data centers; failure to complete any financing arrangements contemplated from time to time; competition from existing and new competitors; the ability to generate sufficient cash flow or otherwise obtain funds to repay new or outstanding indebtedness; the loss or decline in business from our key customers; and other risks described from time to time in Equinix filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular, see recent Equinix quarterly and annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies of which are available upon request from Equinix. Equinix does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.

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SOURCE Equinix, Inc.