The announcements come as Equinix continues its measured global development plan.

The phase I opening of the $30 million (€ 21 million) FR4 centre, which is located in the southwestern region of Frankfurt, comprises 1,700 cabinet equivalents and 6,000 gross square metres (65,000 gross square feet) of data centre space. The data centre is being built out in multiple phases and, when complete, will total 12,000 square metres (130,000 square feet), with capacity for approximately 3,300 cabinet equivalents. Elsewhere, in the north of the city, the planned $18 million expansion of the FR2 IBX will add 2,500 square metres (27,000 square feet) of data centre space, with capacity for approximately 660 cabinets. The FR2 IBX expansion will be completed in phases, between April and September 2010.

These expansions form part of Equinix's wider strategy to increase data centre capacity in Frankfurt, a major global trading hub where the company has seen significant growth in demand to participate in Equinix Financial eXchange. The Equinix Financial eXchange is a community of execution venues, buy and sell side firms and technology utilities that locate within Equinix data centres to optimise trading operations. Equinix now operates four data centres in Frankfurt, all of which are directly linked by redundant dark fibre, enabling all Frankfurt-based customers to interconnect as if they were in the same physical location.

"Equinix is seeing strong demand for colocation and interconnection services in Frankfurt, with significant growth coming from the city's financial services industry," said Eric Schwartz, president of Equinix in Europe. "Equinix's Frankfurt IBX data centres are already a key destination for financial services firms wishing to improve their trading operations by directly connecting with their trading partners and utilising low-latency links to other financial markets around the world. The new FR4 centre, together with the planned expxpansion of FR2, will provide the capacity to grow this community even further."

Equinix has also opened its new Dusseldorf-2 (DU2) IBX data centre, adding 560 cabinets and 2,700 square metres (29,000 square feet) of gross data centre space in Dusseldorf. Located southeast of the city, the new centre will be tethered to Equinix's original Dusseldorf IBX data centre (DU1) through dark fibre links, enabling existing DU1 customers to seamlessly grow their data centre operations.

This growth in German operations is part of Equinix's $1.4 billion (€1.0billion) 2007-2010 global expansion plan.

"Demand for premier data centre services continues to outpace supply across all major European metro regions," continued Schwartz. "Equinix is focused on closing this gap between demand and supply and is committed to expanding its capacity, by both building new data centres and systematically upgrading existing ones."