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Equinix Exec Talks Generative AI, Storage And The Future Of The Data Center

O’Ryan Johnson

‘Everybody is trying to understand right now how they’re going to fit into AI whether it’s going to be training, whether it’s going to be inference. The beauty of it all is it’s all going to live and need to be close to the data centers,’ says Lisa Miller, Equinix senior vice president of platform alliances and global channel.

With cloud repatriation and the rise of hybrid digital environments, data center powerhouse Equinix was already positioned for growth before anyone was talking about generative AI.

But the computational and storage demands of generative AI at scale play into Equinix’s strongest offerings: acres and acres of computer racks in 251 facilities, across 32 countries and six continents.

“Where Equinix is so well positioned is we’re now all talking about where the data lives,” Lisa Miller, senior vice president of platform alliances and global channel at Equinix, told CRN. “So it doesn’t matter what partner you’re talking about. Everybody is trying to understand right now how they’re going to fit into AI whether it’s going to be training, whether it’s going to be inference. The beauty of it all is it’s all going to live and need to be close to the data centers.”

Equinix sales last quarter reached $2.06 billion for 12 percent year over year growth. It is projecting annual revenue of between $8.16 billion and $8.20 billion, for as much as 15-percent growth versus last year.

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Miller said the company isn’t just expanding its revenue. It has announced partnerships with tech giants Nvidia, NetApp, HPE and VMware.

Equinix and Nvidia announced “instant AI infrastructure for enterprise customers,” an end-to-end offer with both AI core infrastructure for model training with Nvidia DGX and inference and AI edge infrastructure on certified Nvidia systems build on Nvidia’s EGX platform.

With NetApp, Equinix can give customer a full stack, bare-metal-as-a-service, hybrid multi-cloud operations on a unified management platform. Through a partnerwhip with HPE and Equinix, customers can extend their private cloud portfolio within Equinix’ data centers, while an offer with VMware expands the pair’s global cloud services offerings.

“What we find is when we can create purpose-built solutions for them that plug into a story that they are trying to take to the market, and they are creating a practice around it or a discipline around it, that we can be really successful,” Miller said.

Miller is Equinix channel chief, responsible for the company’s platform alliances, which are its top strategic and technology cloud partners, as well as Equinix global channel.

“That gives me the full breadth of the channel and the cloud,” Miller said.

She talked with CRN about Equinix partnerships, where its channel partners were finding opportunity, and how all modern technology roads converge at the data center.

 
Learn More: Generative AI
O’Ryan Johnson

O’Ryan Johnson is a veteran news reporter. He covers the data center beat for CRN and hopes to hear from channel partners about how he can improve his coverage and write the stories they want to read. He can be reached at ojohnson@thechannelcompany.com..

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