BT and Equinix today announced an expansion of their relationship to assist international corporations in transforming interconnection across their digital value chains. The change will assist clients in increasing creativity and accelerating business outcomes.
BT’s AI-ready Global Fabric network-as-a-service (NaaS) infrastructure is currently deployed in more than 30 Equinix data centres, with plans to expand to over 40 in the coming year. This will cover the world’s top 30 business locations, accounting for 95% of all cloud interconnection traffic.
It will broaden Global Fabric’s international reach, which BT estimates will be among the largest of any NaaS network. When fully operational, Global Fabric will be accessible to customers worldwide via 140 points-of-presence (PoPs) located in the world’s top cloud locations across 40 nations. It will provide 74% direct coverage of hyperscaler clouds and pre-configured high-bandwidth access to over 700 data centres.
Global Fabric connects worldwide corporations securely, flexibly, and reliably. It significantly improves the simplicity with which they may adopt and scale interconnectivity with third parties such as customers and suppliers across their whole digital value chain.
It enables visibility and control over both access and core networks. This enables businesses to achieve optimal end-to-end network performance for their workloads, from users and devices in offices, factories, and other operational sites to the multi-cloud core, which connects apps and digital services like AI. It is built on a completely resilient architecture and provides a variety of management choices. With older networks, establishing or altering connectivity might take weeks. With Global Fabric, it happens instantly.
Equinix’s global platform connects different clouds, which house the apps, solutions, and marketplaces that power the digital economy. It offers access to about 2,000 network services, 3,000 cloud and IT services, over 400 content and digital media services, and over 4,800 businesses.
The partnership strengthens BT’s capacity to provide its clients with a broad selection of the best locations for their businesses to digitally interconnect with partners, suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders along their entire value chain.
It builds on BT Group’s quantum secure communications partnership with Equinix, which resulted in the UK’s first data centre-to-data centre connection employing the technology.
Equinix’s Global Interconnection Index shows that digital ecosystems are increasing at an exponential rate. By the end of 2025, digital channels are estimated to account for 80% of all B2B sales engagements. Leading firms are innovating 25% faster than their competitors by integrating industrial value chains.Arun Dev, Global Interconnections, Equinix, said: “Our partnership enables BT to offer its customers interconnectivity with the full Equinix global digital ecosystem of cloud and IT services, as well as hundreds of content and digital media services, and over 4,800 enterprises hosted at our datacentres globally.”
Matt Swinden, director, digital connectivity, Business, BT, said: “The BT-Equinix partnership is a terrific example of our strategy to build the strongest digital foundations for our customers. Global Fabric combined with Equinix’s global ecosystem of infrastructure, cloud and digital service widens the choice we offer to customers of the best locations to interconnect their full business value chain. It will help make trading, partnering and operating a multinational business, better on BT.”
