Equinix Wraps $3.6 Billion Verizon Data Center Acquisition

Equinix’s $3.6 billion purchase of 29 Verizon data centers is complete.

Equinix now has 250 former Verizon employees and more than 1,000 additional data center customers in its fold. The companies first shared news of the deal in December. Equinix gets data centers in 15 metro areas in the U.S. and Latin America.

CEO Steve Smith says the new data centers mesh well with how the digital shift is causing business to rethink their infrastructure.

“They are moving from traditional centralized infrastructure to a distributed model that keeps data closer to the customers, partners and employees using it,” Smith said. “With this significant expansion of Equinix’s globally consistent footprint, our platform is even more valuable to companies that are leveraging this new model of interconnection at the digital edge.”

Equinix Americas President Karl Strohmeyer says his company is making a major expansion in his region. He says more than 600 of the new customers haven’t previously worked with Equinix.

“The 29 new data centers greatly expand our ability to enable global interconnection within our robust ecosystems, as the economies of North, Central and South America continue to thrive,” he said.{ad}

The Latin American data centers are in Sao Paolo, Brazil, and Bogota, Colombia. The U.S. cities include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Seattle and Washington, D.C. The sites will be “tethered” to already existing Equinix IBX data centers. Equinix last month announced plans to open five new IBX data centers. Three are in Sao Paolo; Washington, D.C; and Silicon Valley, which are in the same locations as acquired Verizon data centers.

Equinix noted Monday that 83 percent of its first-quarter revenue came from customers deployed in multiple metro areas. Verizon is selling Equinix colocation and interconnection services to enterprise customers, helping those customers connect to various clouds and other enterprises.