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To meet Asia's growing cloud appetite, Equinix begins $28.5 million datacenter expansion

The investment is one example of Singapore's increasing desire to become an IT gatekeeper for Asian markets.
Written by Andrew Nusca, Contributor

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If you weren't familiar, the city-state of Singapore is home to roughly 50 percent of the datacenter capacity for southeast Asia.

But the region's hunger for cloud-based IT services remains unsatiated. (In fact, Gartner estimated the region's spend on datacenter services last year to be about US$10 billion.) Global IT services firm Equinix seeks to meet that demand through a $28.5 million expansion of its Singapore 2 datacenter.

"Cloud adoption in Singapore will accelerate rapidly in the next few years," said Equinix's Clement Goh, "with many companies such as the financial institutions identifying cloud technology as part of their business plans."

Singapore has long been a hub for various industries. Aside from its sizable educational sector, the city-state also has a massive financial exchange industry (fifth in the world, according to Xinhua, behind London, New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong) and was ranked the No. 1 city for logistics by the World Bank in 2007 -- beating peers thanks to its IT-infused shipping and handling industry.

While the city's foray into media dominance -- most prominently through the city's Mediapolis@One-North development -- has yet to be seen, it's clear that Singapore seeks a diverse collection of industries powered by a common fuel: information.

As for Equinix, the fourth phase of its datacenter expansion is expected to finish before the end of 2012 -- quickly enough, it hopes, to meet increasing demand from cloud and financial service providers. The millions spent will bring the facility to 3,256 cabinets and improve latency, and play into a larger company strategy that has led to new datacenters in Hong Kong, Sydney and Tokyo.

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