New innovation hub strengthens global interconnection leader’s product design and engineering talent and capabilities
WARSAW — NOVEMBER 13, 2018 — Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), the global interconnection and data center company, today announced it will establish a Product Development Center in Warsaw to design advanced, customer-inspired, software-defined networking products, develop virtual IT infrastructure capabilities, and perform data science-backed IT infrastructure research aimed at accelerating global digital business.
Equinix will invest approximately $45 million USD in Warsaw over the next five years to support this talent initiative, which will make Warsaw one of three innovation locations of its kind globally, in addition to Singapore and Silicon Valley.
The new Warsaw facility will employ approximately 40 people in engineering and product management roles in 2018, increasing to 90 employees by the end of 2019. This highly-skilled team will work on solutions that will be deployed in more than 200 Equinix data center facilities in 52 markets worldwide to support customer’s IT transformation needs.
The Product Development Center will be officially launched at an event today in Warsaw, celebrating Poland as a key global innovation hub for digital business.
Highlights / Key Facts
- Today, Platform Equinix™ is home to more than 9,800 customers globally, the majority of which are multinationals that leverage the interconnection platform to connect with their digital supply chain across multiple markets, as IT infrastructure becomes more distributed and businesses have a need to connect at the Digital Edge.
- 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.
- In addition to the new Product Development Center, Equinix Professional Services offers customers practical guidance and proven solutions to help optimize and future-proof data center architectures. These Professional Services experts have decades of specialized data center expertise and hands-on experience in assessing, enabling, migrating, optimizing, planning, designing, testing and deploying IT infrastructure, networks and cloud architectures.
- Equinix entered the Polish market in 2016 with the acquisition of Telecity, giving it two data centers in Warsaw and an Internet Exchange, formerly PLIX, which is now the company’s biggest exchange in Europe and fourth-largest globally in terms of digital traffic, reaching 1 Tbps this year.
- Equinix serves more than 360 clients in Poland via two Warsaw International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers – WA1 and WA2 – which enable businesses to interconnect with top content delivery networks and maximize the use of digital channels with access to the main media hubs in Warsaw.
- The company recently expanded its Equinix Cloud Exchange™ Fabric (ECX Fabric) service to Poland, offering customers private connections to some of the more than 1,300 of the world’s largest enterprises and cloud service providers (CSPs) such as Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud and SaaS providers including Salesforce, SAP and ServiceNow, among others. ECX Fabric directly, securely and dynamically connects distributed infrastructure and digital ecosystems on Platform Equinix via global, software-defined interconnection. With Poland being the latest market to go live in the global rollout, local businesses can take advantage of scalability, agility and connectivity over a self-service portal or API. Through a single port, customers can discover and reach anyone at Equinix on demand, locally or across metros.
Quotes
- Brian Lillie, Chief Product Officer, Equinix:
“Platform Equinix is the global interconnection platform for the world’s leading businesses. Our customers associate our brand with something higher level than buildings or technical connections – they see us as partners in business strategy and innovation, where we ideate together and often co-develop solutions together. We are excited to extend our capabilities to further support these global companies and look forward to working with them to drive innovation in our new Product Development Center in Warsaw.”
- Robert Busz, Managing Director Poland, Equinix:
“Poland is the ideal location for a Product Development Center thanks to its supply of highly trained engineers and specifically, software experts who have a well-deserved reputation for being among the world’s brightest. We are looking to hiring the best possible talent locally, to spark innovation into the products and solutions that will enable the digital economy. I am very much looking forward to getting the center up and running – it’s great to have such an innovative hub in our market.”
- Aleksander Kutela, President of Digital Poland Foundation:
“I’m very proud that these large global tech companies select Poland for their R&D hubs in Europe. Equinix’s decision fits well with our goal of the ‘Digital Poland Foundation’ – to make Poland one of the Leading Global Digital Innovation Hubs. Equinix, as our Partner and by opening their PDC in Warsaw, really commit to achieving this goal.”
- Tomasz Pisula, President of the Board, Polish Investment and Trade Agency:
“We are delighted to have supported Equinix from the beginning of the investment decision-making journey and to see the company choose Poland for the establishment of this strategic center within their global footprint. It is a testament to our strong and vibrant STEM community, which can only benefit from engaging in projects of such sophistication and technological advancement. Knowledge and expertise transfer are at the heart of the digital transformation the Polish economy is undergoing over the past years. Polish Investment and Trade Agency remains committed to furthering the creation of value-added jobs in Poland and would like to extend a warm welcome to Equinix.”
- Marek Zagórski, Minister, Ministry of Digital Affairs:
“This new research and development facility of a globally renowned brand proves that Poland is developing in exactly the right direction. Interconnectivity, data exchange, and cloud solutions are among the areas of paramount importance in building a successful Industry 4.0 landscape. It gives me an immense sense of pride to say that our software and networks specialists are among the world’s best, because their talent will greatly contribute to Poland’s progress. Equinix joins an expanding list of innovative companies which entrust their continuous growth to Polish engineers and we are looking forward to share in this success story.”
- Jadwiga Emilewicz, Minister, Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Technology:
“We have started our term with the strong commitment to transform Poland into the innovation-based economy. For this reason, we came up with incentives for the innovation-conscious companies willing to establish its R&D centres in Poland. With the establishment of Equinix Product Development Center in Warsaw we are reassured that our governmental policy is bearing fruits. Poland thanks to its talented people, creative culture and increasingly innovation-friendly environment is a perfect location to run startups and establish corporate R&D centers.”
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 risks described from time to time in Equinix’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular, see Equinix’s recent 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.
Equinix and IBX are registered trademarks of Equinix, Inc.
International Business Exchange is a trademark of Equinix, Inc.
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Equinix (EMEA)
Liam Rose
+44 (0) 207 618 9602
liam.rose@eu.equinix.com
Equinix Investor Relations Contact
Katrina Rymill
+1 (650) 598-6583
krymill@equinix.com
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