Equinix has opened Phase II of its AM3 International Business Exchange (IBX) data center in Amsterdam’s Science Park – doubling its current storage capacity. The build was accelerated in response to the high demand for colocation space in the facility, primarily from cloud providers looking to store their data.

The Phase II expansion has increased the site's size to a total of 17,800 sq m, adding space for up to 2,800 cabinets – doubling the 1,400 available in Phase I of the build.

AM3 is located in a network-dense location which enables more than 120 cloud providers reach 80 percent of Europe within 50ms, Equinix says. The facility uses free cooling from Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) systems in the ground rather than mechanical cooling. This method also provides hot water for neighboring Amsterdam University. The use of this technology earned AM3 the DatacenterDynamics 'Green' Data Center EMEA Award in 2012.

Amsterdam’s ‘best kept secret’
Equinix president and CEO Steve Smith said: “Located at the heart of Europe’s digital gateway, AM3 is one of Equinix’s most innovative and sustainable facilities.”

“We can now cater for a greater number of corporations and service providers to leverage the more than 250 networks available at Science Park Amsterdam,” Smith said.

Opened just two years ago, Science Park Amsterdam currently has around 42 percent of the Netherlands data traffic routed through it, making it the second largest data route in the Netherlands behind Amsterdam South East, which handles 43 percent of the country’s data traffic.