Digital infrastructure company Equinix, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQIX) today announced an expanded relationship with Southern Cross Cables Limited to provide a key U.S.-based interconnectivity access point for the Southern Cross NEXT (SX NEXT) submarine cable system.

SX NEXT will leverage Equinix’s next-generation cable landing station (CLS) architecture, enabling rapid provisioning and cost savings for the cable network provider.

As demand continues to increase for a low-latency digital economy, Equinix and Southern Cross are committed to maintaining low-carbon footprints of subsea cables by designing for sustainability and embracing shared metrics, as recommended by Sustainability Subsea Networks.

The SX NEXT cable offers the lowest latency path from Australia and New Zealand to Los Angeles in the U.S., connecting into Equinix’s LA4 Los Angeles International Business Exchange® (IBX®) data center.

Southern Cross has had a long-term relationship with Equinix due to its global presence, expertise in providing state-of-the-art subsea infrastructure, and its access to dense, rich ecosystems of networks, clouds, financial and IT service providers. The SX NEXT cable enhances network performance across industries in the region and boosts the aggregate capacity of Southern Cross’ existing Trans-Pacific ecosystem by approximately 500%. Southern Cross also utilizes Platform Equinix® to provide critical on-ramps to the Southern Cross network ecosystem at SY1 and SY5 Sydney data centers, as well as SV1and SV8 in Silicon Valley, and LA1 in Los Angeles.

With the release of 400GbE (Layer 1 and 2) capability on the Southern Cross network earlier this year, customers can now take advantage of the lowest latency, secure 400G data center inter-connections between key Equinix facilities in Sydney, Australia and the U.S. West Coast.

Equinix has won 50 subsea cable projects since entering the business in 2015. More than 50 Equinix metros are CLS enabled, meaning that Equinix’s data centers are close enough to the coast to be able to support a CLS deployment.

The need for additional capacity between Australia and the U.S. is driven by increased demand for cloud services, content and digital media, and e-commerce capabilities.

Jim Poole, Vice President, Business Development, Equinix, commented:

“As bandwidth reaches unprecedented levels, the volume of subsea cable construction has reached its highest point in the 165-year history of this medium. Major projects are bringing new capacity into emerging and high-growth markets such as Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. And in well-established subsea cable corridors—including the Pacific—there’s new construction to keep up with the growing demand. By supplementing existing trans-Pacific routes, the Southern Cross NEXT cable provides seamless and accelerated interconnection across Platform Equinix, with an opportunity to help boost the digital economy in those regions.”