SILICON VALLEY — At the Equinix data center in San Jose, California, on the 1st, four layers of security screening led into a data hall lined with rows of server racks and networking equipment. Opening the steel cage that houses the racks requires clearing a fifth checkpoint.
The servers on view carried no company names or specifications, both treated as confidential. "Our customers run their core businesses here, so we don't attach any names or signs," said Bill Strong, senior vice president of IBX operations in the U.S. for Equinix. IBX is the company's data center brand.
Founded in 1998, Equinix is the largest operator in the market for third-party corporate data centers. It runs 110 facilities in the Americas and more than 280 worldwide, the biggest network of its kind. Unlike hyperscalers, which operate ultra-large computing infrastructure, Equinix supplies only power, cooling and networking systems, leaving core infrastructure such as artificial intelligence chips to its customers.
The site visited is the San Jose campus, a cluster of four buildings known as SV1, SV5, SV10 and SV11. Their combined capacity of 60 megawatts falls short of the gigawatt scale of a single hyperscaler campus, but the campus serves a range of companies in Silicon Valley, the center of the AI industry.
Fiber-optic cables run in a ring, split between eastern and western routes, so communications continue even if one side fails. Indirect evaporative cooling keeps indoor temperatures in the low 20s Celsius, while servers using the latest AI chips run hotter and rely on chilled-water piping.
The main power source is natural gas. "We generate electricity by running fuel cells on natural gas, and if there is an earthquake or a blackout, large backup diesel generators kick in, so recovery takes one second and there is no interruption in power," an Equinix official said. The official added that the setup is environmentally friendly because it converts natural gas into electricity and releases water vapor as a byproduct. "There is an apartment complex nearby, but it is eco-friendly and quiet, so there has been no pushback from residents," the official said.
Power consumption at SV10, which began operating in 2017, was just 5 to 5.5 kilowatts per rack. At SV11, which opened five years later, it reached 135 kilowatts, a 27-fold increase. "In future data centers, advancing cooling infrastructure, securing power and shortening build times will be the key issues," Strong said.
