Equinix opened the third phase of its London LD5 International Business Exchange (IBX) data center in Slough, west of London.

The build-out adds 4,000 sq mts of data center space with capacity for 1,400 cabinets. The expansion includes 130 dedicated Business Continuity Trading (BTCR) desks, providing emergency trading capabilities for financial services firms.

The BCTR offering provides financial customers with support, backup and recovery facilities to safeguard mission-critical trading operations. Monitors, workstations, specialized trading phones, and numerous market data feeds match are available to match infrastructure demands and risk profiles.

The latest BCTR offering in London is in addition to BCTR offerings in Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Munich, Dusseldorf, Milan, New York, and Sao Paulo.

"Our LD5 expansion sits in one of the largest and fastest growing data center markets in the world, with increasing customer demand for capacity. This facility allows us to offer highly resilient and secure colocation facilities and to add sector-specific enhancements and features as we go,” said Russell Poole, managing director, Equinix UK. “Financial market participants and service providers are key growth drivers currently, and they are experiencing growing regulatory pressure to put business continuity capacity in place. This is why our latest build-out features are what we believe is the most comprehensive and best-connected business continuity offering in theLondon market today.”

When the fourth and final phase of the build-out is completed, LD5 will provide 16,000 sq mts of customer space, with capacity for 5,600 cabinets in total. The LD4/LD5 facilities are located on the same campus and are Equinix’s first data centers built completely from the ground up in Europe. Connected by more than 1,000 diverse dark fiber links into Central London with global access to more than 900 network providers, the LD5 facility enables customers to exchange business information and expand their IT infrastructure.