Equinix  Equinix, Inc. is an American multinational company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that specializes in Internet connection and data centers. The company is a leader in global colocation data center market share, with 205 data centers in 25 countries on five continents. It is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol EQIX, and as of 2018, it had approximately 7,800 employees globally. The company converted to a real estate investment trust (REIT) in January 2015. Equinix was founded in 1998 by Al Avery and Jay Adelson, two facilities managers at Digital Equipment Corporation. The firm promoted its data center platform as a neutral place where competing networks could connect and share data traffic. The firm focused on expanding interconnection from its inception, to capitalize on the so-called “network effect,” through which each new customer would broaden the appeal of its platform. It expanded to Asia-Pacific in 2002 and Europe in 2007, and then to Latin America in 2011 and the Middle East in 2012. Peter Van Camp has led Equinix in a variety of roles for 17 years. He was chief executive officer from May 2000 until 2006, when he was appointed executive chairman of the board of directors. Steve Smith took over as CEO in 2007 and resigned in January 2018. Van Camp was named interim chief executive officer upon Smith's resignation, until Charles Meyers was named as the company's president and CEO in September 2018. In 2002, Equinix merged with i-STT, the Internet infrastructure service subsidiary of Singapore Technologies Telemedia, and Pihana Pacific. This established the company's presence in China, Singapore, Australia and Japan. In 2007, the firm announced a $2 billion international expansion plan and entered the European market by acquiring data center operator IXEurope and its facilities in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. That plan was completed with the 2010 opening of Equinix's 50th global data center, in London. Over the next seven years, the company nearly tripled its data center portfolio, growth the company attributes to increased demand for interconnection services caused by the emergence of cloud computing, along with the expansion of related trends such as the Internet of Things and big data. The firm's next major acquisition came in 2010, when the company purchased Switch and Data Facilities Company, Inc., a U.S. Internet exchange and colocation services provider with locations in 23 North American markets. The transaction was valued at approximately $683.4 million.