Equinix REIT Partners with Nvidia on Turnkey AI Platform
Data center giant pivots as 80% of enterprises projected to adopt GenAI.
Equinix, the largest global data center and colocation provider for enterprise network and cloud computing, is partnering with AI chipmaker Nvidia on a turnkey AI development platform.
Charles Meyers, Equinix CEO, said in a recent earnings call that the company aims to make the platform “the place where private AI happens.”
“GenAI has the capacity to transform every industry and is poised to accelerate rapidly,” Meyers said, during the call.
“By 2026, Gartner predicts over 80% of enterprises will have used GenAI APIs and models or deployed GenAI-enabled applications in product environments, up from just 5% in early 2023,” he said. “We’re leaning into this opportunity.”
The new platform, known as Equinix Private AI with NVIDIA DGX, is described by Equinix as a “turnkey, ready-to-run AI development platform.”
According to the company’s website, the platform is a streamlined hybrid AI infrastructure that allows enterprises to use NVIDIA DGX-powered systems to train models, offering direct high-speed connectivity to the public cloud.
“This solution delivers leadership-class performance, provides access to world-class AI expertise and is powered by best-of-breed developer software, ensuring immediate productivity gains,” the website says.
The AI platform is being launched at Equinix data operations in Silicon Valley and Washington, DC, with deployments planned in Northern Virginia, Dallas and Montreal, as well as several locations in Europe and Asia.
Enterprises get four NVIDIA DGX units per rack at colocation facilities. The racks feature in-row coolers, part of a liquid cooling loop at the data centers.
“Platform Equinix enables enterprises to support training on-premises with NVIDIA DGX and tap into cloud services as needed and extend AI workloads at the edge. With 96% renewable energy coverage of our data centers, enterprises can scale sustainably without compromise,” the platform marketing states.
“Enterprises can move quickly, while balancing performance requirements, a need for cloud adjacency, and a rapidly increasing desire to maintain control of critical enterprise data,” Meyers said, during the earnings call.
The Equinix CEO said the company is seeing “strong interest” in the AI development platform “with early adoption from digital leaders in biopharma, financial services, software, automotive and retail subsegments.”
“Early wins in this partnership include a Fortune 100 global biopharma company who will create an AI center of excellence to accelerate its research and development process and shorten time to market for new medications,” Meyers said.