UAE operator Du and the data centre company Equinix announced they have entered into an alliance to deliver data centre and interconnection services to customers in the Middle East. They will establish a carrier-neutral hub in the region where carriers, content providers, cloud providers, financial service and enterprise customers colocate critical data infrastructure. To underpin the alliance's initial business offering, Equinix has acquired a newly built data centre facility in Dubai. Equinix will operate the new International Business Exchange (IBX), which has capacity of 44,000 square feet and approximately 650 cabinets. The first phase of the data centre is expected to be completed and open for business by 01 January 2013. Equinix expects to invest approximately USD 40 million for the acquisition, upgrade and future expansion of this site. Du expects to invest an equivalent amount to further grow its recently announced datamena brand and service portfolio. Datamena services will only be available in the data centres in the alliance.
