The companies hope it will help establish the region’s first carrier neutral hub, where carriers, content providers, cloud providers, financial service and enterprise customers can co-locate data infrastructure.
To support the move, Equinix has acquired a newly built data centre facility in Dubai, which has a capacity of 44,000 square feet and approximately 650 cabinets.
The first phase of the data centre, which will operate under the title International Business Exchange (IBX), is due to be completed and enter operations by January 1 2012. Equinix is expected to invest approximately $40 million in the site, including upgrades and future expansion.
du is expected to invest an equivalent amount in growing its datamena platform and service portfolio, which were launched just last month.
The services, which are designed to help international customers host and distribute content and trade data capacity, will only be available in the alliance’s data centres. The UAE operator will also be able to offer its enterprise customers managed data centre services and data centre capacity.
For Equinix, the alliance caps a year of significant global expansion, which has seen the carrier neutral data centre extend its presence in Europe and Asia.
The company’s president of EMEA, Eric Schwartz, said the Middle East continues to strengthen its position as an “important business hub” and it is seeing an “increased demand from customers for data centre services across the region”.
“Many companies are looking to expand their operations into and out of the area, and we will be working with du to provide the connectivity and services they require to succeed,” he added.
For du, the alliance builds on its long-term goal of turning the UAE into an important content hub for the Middle East region. The company’s CEO, Osman Sultan, said the introduction of datamena and a carrier-neutral data centre “will act as a catalyst for the next stage of internet development in the region”.
“This resonates with the UAE’s vision of enhancing its role as a regional business hub and to be one of the best places to do business in the world,” he added.
Are you interested in meeting with the Middle Eastern content ecosystem including content owners, internet content companies, CDNs and carriers?
Content Delivery & Digital Services Middle East 2012, taking place on 10 & 11 December 2012 in Dubai, is the event to attend if you are looking to create new business in this region.
