Equinix will invest 52 million in a new data center in Barcelona

Barcelona is advancing its strategy to position itself as a strategic hub for terrestrial and submarine telecommunications cable connections. The launch last year of the Barcelona Cable Landing Station, the fiber optic submarine cable landing station located in Sant Adrià de Besòs, has been key to accelerating the implementation of new data centers in the metropolitan region, vital infrastructures for the digitalization of companies and the transformation of the economic and social model.

The American group Equinix, listed on Nasdaq, has just announced the construction of a second data center in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, a municipality where it already has another similar facility since 2017. The project, called International Business Exchange BA2, will involve an investment of 52 million euros and is expected to become operational during the first quarter of 2024.

According to the company, the new data center already has a first client, the British multinational Colt Technology Services, which is also the first terrestrial operator to connect to the Barcelona Cable Landing Station. "This new facility will serve as a strategic connection point for data communications between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and will quickly turn Barcelona into an essential submarine cable landing location," Equinix stated. The main cables connected will be: 2Africa, which connects the main coastal markets of the African continent and the Arabian Peninsula; Aqua Comms' Europe-Middle East-India cable, which will link Barcelona with Salalah and Mumbai; Sipartech's Medloop, which connects Barcelona with Ajaccio, Genoa, and Marseille; and the Medusa cable, which will link Barcelona with Lisbon and other important Mediterranean, European, and African markets.

"Submarine cables play a fundamental role in enabling the modern digital world, and we foresee great progress in the next two years after the slowdown caused by the pandemic," said Jim Poole, vice president of the American group. According to Equinix, "Barcelona continues to attract major international organizations" in the technological field and cites as examples the investments made in the city by companies such as Airbnb, Amazon, Google, HP, Microsoft, and Ubisoft.

The BA2 data center plans to consume exclusively 100% renewable energy and will be connected by cable to the current center, called BA1. Both buildings, Equinix points out, will form "a dense campus and digital ecosystem that will add much-needed digital capacity to the city to enable local businesses to expand and grow, as well as to encourage international companies to land or expand in Barcelona, which is already an essential and strategically located hub for international communications."

Equinix, which owns 245 data centers worldwide, acquired ownership of the BA1 data center in 2017 thanks to the acquisition of the company Itconic, previously known as Telvent, in an operation valued at 215 million euros.