Equinix goes live with third Rio de Janeiro datacenter

US interconnection and datacenter group Equinix officially activated operations at RJ3, its third and largest datacenter in Rio de Janeiro state and eighth in Brazil.

With a budget of US$94mn, the facility located in São João de Meriti was opened a little ahead of schedule. As BNamericas previously reported, construction was nearly complete by the end of 2024.

"We are delighted to open RJ3, our new datacenter in Rio de Janeiro, on time and within budget," Victor Arnaud, Equinix Brazil country manager, told BNamericas.

Built on a plot of 15,000m2, the project debuts with 560 racks and 1,467m2 of colocation space in its first phase, comprising two data halls with 280 racks partly leased to clients.

Like Equinix's other two datacenters in Rio de Janeiro, RJ3 is geared toward colocation services, whose sites are labelled by the company as IBX datacenters, and not for hyperscale, or xScale under Equinix's branding.

Despite this, Equinix bets on using the new datacenter for AI computing as well.

"Our IBX was built to comprise our platform together with RJ1 and RJ2 and meet the growing demand in the region for a robust and interconnected digital infrastructure, capable of meeting the needs that accompany the evolution of technology, including AI workloads," said Arnaud.

According to Arnaud, Equinix Brasil team is working "round the clock" in prospecting and in activating customers who have already signed up for RJ3.

BNamericas visited the site last October and provided further details on the datacenter.

Expansions underway

The company's next steps in Brazil include the fourth phase of the SP4 datacenter in São Paulo, which is scheduled to be activated this quarter.

Phase four involves capex of US$22mn, with 750 cabinets of storage capacity.

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In addition, the company is advancing with construction of SP6, also in the metropolitan region of São Paulo. Announced in 2023, SP6 is budgeted at US$110mn. Both SP4 and SP6 are IBX-type facilities.

Overall, Equinix has announced US$262mn in investments for Brazil through 2026.

The company, which is headquartered in Redwood City, California, plans to release its Q4 and full 2024 results on February 12.