Global digital infrastructure firm Equinix has introduced the Equinix Enhanced Performance Innovation Centers (EPIC), a global network of production-ready liquid cooling environments to enable enterprises to test, build and deploy high-density AI infrastructure. EPIC is live in Frankfurt, London, Osaka, Paris and Sydney, with more locations expected to open in 2027.
In a press release, Equinix explained that while AI computing increases rack densities and the need for liquid cooling, enterprises that are new to the technology need to be able to evaluate their own requirements before deploying their infrastructure. EPIC will enable customers to do this as well as identify potential deployment issues and assess infrastructure performance before committing to large-scale installations.
“Liquid cooling is an essential component of modern enterprise infrastructure and a hard requirement for customers deploying AI,” said Brian Stein, Senior Vice President, Infrastructure Products and Services, Equinix. “EPIC provides businesses with a place to test, validate and build with confidence before they commit to large-scale deployments. We’re putting our global infrastructure footprint and unmatched ecosystem to work to accelerate the path from concept to production for our customers.”
Located inside Equinix data centers, the facilities allow businesses to test liquid-cooled graphics processing units (GPUs) and central processing units (CPUs), as well as run AI training and inference workloads under real-world conditions. Enterprises will be able to work with Equinix and their technology partners and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to assess combined liquid cooling stacks under field conditions. They will be able to see how the systems integrate to help get to deployment faster.
Criteo, an Equinix customer, used the facilities to evaluate liquid cooling before expanding its use across its distributed AI infrastructure.
“Liquid cooling was new territory for us, so we built our confidence step by step, our AI runs across a distributed footprint, and the infrastructure must perform the same way wherever it sits,” said Matthieu Blumberg, SVP of Engineering Infrastructure, Security, Internal IT & CISO, Criteo. “We saw how liquid cooling performed in practice, learned what it took to run it well, and then committed to scale. Equinix was with us at every stage, with the expertise and the live environment to prove it out first. That’s what turned liquid cooling from an open question into a core part of our distributed AI infrastructure.”
EPIC expands Equinix’s existing technology testing facilities. The company launched its first Co-Innovation Facility in 2022, allowing partners to test technologies before deployment in its data centers. In 2024, it introduced Solution Validation Centers to help customers assess infrastructure deployments in distributed environments.