Equinix Has Filled 57 Percent of DC Space

In its quarterly SEC filing, data center services provider Equinix says it is filling up its floor space in many markets, but may be limited by power and cooling concerns. An excerpt:

Our utilization rate represents the percentage of our cabinet space billing versus total cabinet space available. Our utilization rate grew to 57% as of March 31, 2006 from 45% as of March 31, 2005. Although we have substantial capacity for growth, our utilization rates vary from market to market among our IBX centers in the 11 markets across the U.S. and Asia-Pacific. … Power and cooling requirements for some customers are growing on a per unit basis. As a result, customers are consuming an increasing amount of power per cabinet. We could face power limitations in our centers even though we may have additional physical capacity available within a specific IBX center.

As a result, Equinix said, the maximum utilization rate it’s likely to see in most IBX centers is approximately 75 to 80 percet depending on the building configurations.