Equinix, a provider of global data centre services, has announced the launch of phase four of its second Singapore International Business Exchange data centre to accommodate increasing market demand from cloud and financial service providers. Equinix is investing an additional US$28.5 million in the expansion of SG2, increasing the number of cabinets to 3,256.

According to the Singapore Economic Development Board, Singapore is currently home to approximately 50% of South East Asia’s data centre capacity. The fourth phase of the expansion, which is expected to be available by the end of 2012, is timed to meet customer demand in Singapore driven by the growth in cloud adoption.  Equinix continues to see increasing demand for cloud services from local and multinational cloud and financial services customers in the Asia-Pacific region. By leveraging Equinix’s network-dense and highly secure platform, customers will gain access to an established, rich ecosystem of companies and as a result benefit from high-connectivity and low latency.

Andrew Khaw, senior director (Industry Development) of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore said Singapore's robust, secure and well-connected Infocomm Technology ecosystem is ideal for companies to set up critical hub operations here to serve Asia. “As a leading independent data center and Internet exchange provider, Equinix's expansion is yet another testament to the competitiveness of Singapore’s ICT sector. In addition, Equinix’s close proximity to Mediapolis@One-North contributes to IDA’s vision of ICT as a critical differentiator to this flagship initiative to positionSingapore in the international digital media industry.”