One year ago today, Equinix acquired 13 data centers from Bell Canada in a deal valued at more than $1 billion CAD. With this acquisition, we gained approximately 400,000 square feet of colocation space and over 600 customers in eight metro markets from coast to coast. In addition, we announced our first Platinum partnership in the region with Bell, Canada’s largest telecom provider and trusted partner to Canadian businesses for over a century. Now as the leading data center provider in Canada, we are committed to bring the best of Equinix to Canada and the best of Canada to the world.
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We are thrilled to be celebrating our one-year Platinum Partner anniversary with Equinix. Together, Bell and Equinix are delivering the digital foundation that businesses need to accelerate transformation and unlock new opportunities. And with the recent expansion of Bell Cloud Connect on Equinix Fabric, we are leading the way in cloud transformation – offering Canadian organizations best-in-class connectivity to the best cloud destinations and applications.”– Giovanni Sansalone, Vice President of Product & Professional Services, Bell Canada
This cooperative, forward-looking vision is shared by Mike Hilton, President of HPE Canada, who spoke of the partnership with Equinix to bring HPE GreenLake private cloud solutions to our joint Canadian and global customers over the last year:
Collectively we bring a technology alliance to our customers, who are looking for private cloud solutions and experiences. What makes these private cloud solutions and experiences even more powerful, is the ability for national and global customers to leverage Equinix Fabric to connect their workloads and applications that are not in hyperscale cloud, while also providing cloud adjacency for those workloads and applications that are. With all of this HPE Canada, Equinix and our partners deliver a true hybrid cloud model, fully connected, fully metered, end to end.– Mike Hilton, President, HPE Canada
Canada has a robust economy with strong global trade connections with all other G7 members. Digital infrastructure investments also play a key role in the Canadian economy — despite the economic challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian digital sector grew 3.5% in 2020,[i] making it a key source of economic resilience for the country. In addition, multinational companies see Canada as an attractive expansion target because of its commitment to data protection and sovereignty. And Canada is the only North American country to receive an adequacy decision from the European Commission[ii] —this means businesses bound by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) can exchange data between the EU and Canada without exposing themselves to regulatory risk.
We’re proud to establish a solid trans-Canadian presence. Over the last year, we have grown our national Canadian management team and staff, where we now have nearly 300 employees supporting more than 900 customers and partners countrywide.
Andrew (left) and Jon (right) holding the Equinix hockey jersey, with others from the Equinix Canada Team with beautiful downtown Toronto in the background.
Platform Equinix is home to the industry’s largest global ecosystem, with 10,000+ companies — representing more than half of the Fortune 500 and more than one-third of the Forbes Global 2000. We offer our customers and partners unmatched stability and infinite possibilities to expand nationally across Canada and around the world.
Helping Canadian and multinational businesses advance their digital strategies
The results of the Equinix 2020-2021 Global Tech Trends Survey (GTTS) show a strong commitment to a digital and sustainable future as a top priority for many organizations in Canada:
- 62% adopting a multicloud strategy
- 60% moving infrastructure to the digital edge
- 55% connecting with new digital ecosystems
- 50% reporting that they have a long-term sustainability plan in place
We continue to see digital growth opportunities in the Canadian economy for the rest of 2021 and beyond, making it an attractive business destination for Canadian and multinational companies who also want to advance their transformation strategies. Our global vendor-neutral access to an extensive interconnected ecosystem of cloud and network service providers helps us attract new service providers looking to expand into Canada, giving our enterprise customers more choice and flexibility to build and grow their digital infrastructures than ever before.
Over the last year, we have grown our national Canadian management team and staff, where we now have nearly 300 employees supporting more than 900 customers and partners countrywide.
And just as Canada is committed to a greener, more energy-efficient world — Canada is the 5th largest country in the world’s green energy production[iii] — we are dedicated to pursuing growth in Canada in a sustainable manner. We see it as our responsibility to harness the power of technology to contribute to a more accessible, climate-neutral and sustainable future, in Canada and across the globe.
Perhaps the most exciting news for our customers is that we’ve expanded our global platform of Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers from one to eight metros across Canada, extending our coverage from coast to coast. This provides a consistent global platform upon which regional and multinational companies can expand their digital infrastructures and interconnect with vibrant industry ecosystem partners.
The unique benefits of each metro Equinix IBX include:
- Toronto: Canada’s most populous metro area and largest economic center and home to our first IBX facility in Canada. A global hub of commerce and finance, there are currently 235+ companies across our six IBX facilities, including 50+ networks and 85+ cloud and IT service providers. Additionally, the downtown TR2 facility is directly connected to Equinix NY4 in Secaucus, New Jersey via the Crosslake Fibre submarine cable, interconnecting two vital financial ecosystems with low latency, lit and dark fiber services.
- Montreal: The second-fastest growing information and communications technology (ICT) market in the Americas, and second-largest internet peering center in Canada. Our MT1 facility houses Canada’s cloud ecosystem with on-ramps to all the major hyperscale cloud and SaaS providers.
- Ottawa: The capital of Canada and a key interconnection hub for national and global companies. Our OT1 data center provides access to robust ecosystems, with connectivity to government/public organizations and retail, finance and blue-chip enterprises.
- Calgary: The headquarters of the Canadian oil and gas industry with a global internet backbone hub serving western Canada, this metro also has growing retail and healthcare sectors. Customers in our three Calgary IBX data centers can choose from a range of network services delivered by local and international providers, in addition to interconnecting with a variety of content and digital media (CDM) companies.
- Vancouver: The metro area with the third-largest economy and the largest technology hub in Canada. Our VA1 facility is ideal for the retail, cloud and technology sectors, as it houses thriving ecosystems for cloud, enterprise and network providers.
In addition to the key metros named above, Kamloops, Saint John and Winnipeg are also included within our global footprint of more than 230 data centers across 65 metros and 27 countries.
We see it as our responsibility to harness the power of technology to contribute to a more accessible, climate-neutral and sustainable future, in Canada and across the globe.
Access to a growing catalog of digital solutions and services
Earlier this year, Montreal became the second Canadian metro to offer Equinix Fabric™ software-defined interconnection —Toronto being the first — providing our customers with direct and secure access at software speed to AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. Subsequently, we’ve expanded Equinix Fabric to additional metros and data centers in Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto with the intent of providing a backbone that connects the country from coast-to-coast. Equinix Fabric provides the direct and secure private interconnection required to comply with data sovereignty requirements, enabling sensitive data to remain in country.
Celero, a leading provider of digital technology and integration solutions to credit unions and financial institutions across Canada, partnered with Equinix in 2021 to access the cloud-connected capabilities of the Equinix IBX data centers, advance connectivity with partners like Kyndryl, Microsoft, Google and AWS, and reduce network costs and increase flexibility for their clients. Platform Equinix® also enables Celero to address the market shift towards geographically-agnostic, real-time data processing, which is a priority for Celero as it serves over 100 credit unions across all regions and areas of Canada.
Equinix Fabric provides the direct and secure private interconnection required to comply with data sovereignty requirements, enabling sensitive data to remain in country.
We partnered with Equinix because we recognized that their unique value proposition in the Canadian marketplace is central to delivering on Celero’s strategic cloud roadmap and propelling our ability to provide solutions that address the evolving, complex network needs of financial institutions. Platform Equinix is foundational and essential for Celero to support our clients in both rural and urban areas. At the same time, our partnership with Equinix is enabling us to pursue our digital transformation strategies, deliver on consumer expectations, and achieve our vision as an innovative, cloud-connected service provider to financial institutions across Canada.– Richard Hannah, CEO, Celero
In addition, we’re continuing to build out a robust interconnected ecosystem in region with partnerships with key providers such as Bell and HPE to further advance regional and global enterprises’ digital transformation:
HPE Canada is very excited to see that the majority of Equinix’s partners are also HPE partners, and many are strong HPE GreenLake partners. With HPE GreenLake, the cloud that comes to you, we collectively bring consumption based offerings to the workloads that aren’t moving to hyperscale cloud, with a full cloud operating model experience in a Equinix data center.– Mike Hilton, President, HPE Canada
Canada is a modern, growing country, unique in its connections to the wider world. For this reason, we predict it will continue to play a significant role in the global digital economy. One year later, our commitment to investing in and growing with Canada remains as strong as ever.
We invite you to take a closer look at how Equinix can help you achieve your national and/or global digital transformation aspirations. Connect with an Equinix Canada sales specialist today.
[i] Bank of Canada, The digital transformation and Canada’s economic resilience. Remarks delivered virtually by Timothy Lane, Deputy Governor, Advocis Western Canada Chapters. June 10, 2021.
[ii] European Commission, Adequacy decisions.
