The new data centre is the second facility the firm will have in the country’s capital once the first phase of the quick build-out is completed next year.

Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX) will open the company’s second Bulgarian International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre in Q1 2019. The $19m data centre in the capital Sofia, branded SO2, will further help Bulgarian companies to interconnect globally.

“Bulgaria is a strategic location within the Balkans with access to the EU, Turkey and the Caucasus,” said Equinix. SO2 will meet customer demand by providing around 350 cabinets in the first phase of the build-out, with the opportunity to add 1,100 cabinets in subsequent phases.

The first data centre in Sofia is already home to over 100 companies, including cloud service providers, network service providers, enterprises and content and digital media companies.

SO2 will help organisations expand into Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and will enjoy direct connectivity to the Bulgarian Internet Exchange (BIX). SO2 will use 100% green energy, like SO1 has leveraged since 2016.

Lyubomir Rusanov, CEO of SuperHosting.BG, said: “We offer hosting services to more than 200,000 websites and use Equinix for colocation services. The opening of a second data centre will help us meet the growing demands of our clients in Bulgaria and abroad.”

Zdravko Nikolov, Equinix managing director for Bulgaria, said: “Our presence in Bulgaria has been met with strong customer demand, as businesses increase their IT consumption to keep pace with the growing digital economy.”

Equinix recently announced that it would open the company’s first International Business Exchange data centre dedicated to the needs of the company’s largest cloud customers in Paris in Q1 2019. The facility will see an investment of $73m. The PA8 IBX will include around 850 cabinets in the first phase of build-out.