Equinix launches its JH1 data centre in Johor
Equinix's JH1 data centre in Johor launched, just 15km away from Singapore.
On Monday, Equinix launched its new JH1 data centre, sited just 15km away from Singapore in Johor.
As I wrote previously, Johor is the fastest-growing data centre market in Southeast Asia with 1.6GW of total supply.
(Read about it here)
JH1 facility
With its launch, Equinix revealed additional information about its JH1 data centre, located at Nusajaya Tech Park in Iskandar Puteri.
- 15 km from S'pore.
- Two-storey data centre.
- Initial investment of US$40M.
- Up to 500 cabinets; 1,800 sqm colocation.
I wasn't invited, so I made do with media photos and information gleaned from Malaysian publications.
- Dark fibre to Singapore data centres.
- Hot aisle containment layout.
- Solar panels for non-IT load.
- Standard diesel generator.
Overall, it seems a fairly standard data centre that doesn't appear to have any special provisions made to handle high-density workloads or liquid cooling for AI.
Of course, I've previously argued that any data centre can be an AI data centre.
Dual metro data centre
In its press release, Equinix pointed to its dual metro data centres in Malaysia. The idea is simple - that of two geographically separated data centres with greater resilience.
FYI, Equinix's KL1 facility is expected to provide a total of 900 cabinets and 2,630 sqm of colocation space when fully built out.
- Interestingly, in 2016 I spoke to VADS about this exact concept which it went on to build: Two core data centres, one up North and another in the South.
- In fact, VADS' southern facility is also located in Iskandar Puteri with the northern one in Cyberjaya like Equinix's KL1.
However, I don't hear much about a dual data centre concept these days. I think the key reason has to do with how modern data centres are already highly interconnected with other facilities.
In addition, the larger data centre providers or hyperscalers also tend to build or co-locate within multiple data centres, not just two.
Be interesting to watch the other Johor data centres as they go live.
Update 29 May: Equinix Malaysia PR has since confirmed JH1 don't use raised flooring and sent me a fact sheet that suggests a 6MW facility (n+1).
