NSW Minister for Trade, Tourism and Major Events Stuart Ayres has welcomed the decision by US company Equinix to invest close to US$100 million in a new data centre in Sydney.

“Continued investment in NSW by international information and communication technology (ICT) companies confirms our State is fast gaining a reputation as the Asia Pacific’s new Silicon Valley,” Mr Ayres said.

Equinix, a global interconnection and data centre company, plans to build a large-scale data centre in Sydney – its fourth in the city and fifth in Australia. It is part of the company’s growing global platform consisting of more than 100 data centres across five continents.

“Since 2011, the NSW Government has helped attract almost 30 international ICT companies to the State – including big names such as Dropbox,” Mr Ayres said.

“These companies are attracted to the strong NSW economy along with our skilled workforce, commitment to collaboration and innovation, and enviable lifestyle.

“NSW is already Australia’s ICT and technology leader – our State accounts for 43 per cent of the nation’s ICT businesses and 32 per cent of ICT graduates,” Mr Ayres added.

The source countries for the new ICT companies the NSW Government has worked with include:

• 14 from the United States
• 8 from India
• 7 from Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates

These companies provide a range of services including computer system design, internet services, data processing, digital marketing, cloud services and telecommunications.

The figures have been released prior to CeBIT Australia 2015, of which the NSW Government is the Official Partner.

CeBIT opens on May 5 at Sydney Olympic Park. It is expected to attract some 20,000 people and 450 exhibitors and is the largest business technology exhibition in Australasia.

Equinix will be featured in a NSW Government brochure to be released next week which profiles NSW’s ICT strengths and includes case studies about companies that have been attracted to NSW.

In the Equinix case study, Equinix Australia Managing Director Jeremy Deutsch said enterprises in Australia were already moving towards hybrid cloud architectures which was driving strong growth for these types of services.

“Combined with the advanced IT capabilities and high rates of adoption of cloud services present in Australia, this makes Sydney a logical location for offering digital services to end users,” Mr Deutsch said.

Other ICT companies which have established in Sydney since 2011 include US company Rackspace, Indian startup Avekshaa Technologies and Hong Kong company Belimark, the official agency in Australia and New Zealand for Chinese search engine Baidu.