UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

__________________________

FORM 10-K

☒ ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023

OR

☐ TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the transition period from _____________ to _____________

Commission file number 001-40205

______________________

EQUINIX, INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Delaware	77-0487526
(State of incorporation)	(IRS Employer Identification No.)

One Lagoon Drive, Redwood City, California 94065

(Address of principal executive offices, including ZIP code)

(650) 598-6000

(Registrant's telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Title of each class	Trading Symbol	Name of each exchange on which registered
Common Stock, $0.001	EQIX	The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC
0.250% Senior Notes due 2027		The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC
1.000% Senior Notes due 2033		The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Act. Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes   ☐   No  ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See definitions of "large accelerated filer," "accelerated filer," "smaller reporting company," and "emerging growth company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

Large accelerated filer	☒	Accelerated filer	☐
Non-accelerated filer	☐	Smaller reporting company	☐
		Emerging growth company	☐

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act.   ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☒

If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant's executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to § 240.10D-1(b). ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes   ☐   No  ☒

The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common stock held by non-affiliates computed by reference to the price at which the common stock was last sold as of the last business day of the registrant's most recently completed second fiscal quarter was approximately $73.0 billion. As of February 15, 2024, a total of 94,621,449 shares of the registrant's common stock were outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Part III – Portions of the registrant's definitive proxy statement to be issued in conjunction with the registrant's 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, which is expected to be filed not later than 120 days after the registrant's fiscal year ended December 31, 2023. Except as expressly incorporated by reference, the registrant's proxy statement shall not be deemed to be a part of this report on Form 10-K.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

	EQUINIX, INC.
	FORM 10-K
	December 31, 2023
Item	PART I	Page No.
	Forward-Looking Statements	3
	Summary of Risk Factors	3
1.	Business	5
1A.	Risk Factors	17
1B.	Unresolved Staff Comments	42
1C.	Cybersecurity	43
2.	Properties	45
3.	Legal Proceedings	49
4.	Mine Safety Disclosures	49
	PART II
5.	Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities	50
6.	Reserved	51
7.	Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations	52
7A.	Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk	74
8.	Financial Statements and Supplementary Data	76
9.	Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure	76
9A.	Controls and Procedures	76
9B.	Other Information	77
9C.	Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspections	77
	PART III
10.	Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance	78
11.	Executive Compensation	78
12.	Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters	78
13.	Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence	78
14.	Principal Accounting Fees and Services	78
	PART IV
15.	Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules	79
16.	Form 10-K Summary	85
	Signatures	86

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PART I

Forward-Looking Statements

The words "Equinix", "we", "our", "ours", "us" and the "Company" refer to Equinix, Inc. All statements in this discussion that are not historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including statements regarding Equinix's "expectations", "beliefs", "intentions", "strategies", "forecasts", "predictions", "plans" or the like. Such statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Equinix cautions investors that there can be no assurance that actual results or business conditions will not differ materially from those projected or suggested in such forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, the risk factors discussed in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Equinix expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in Equinix's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which any such statements are based.

Summary of Risk Factors

Our business is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that make an investment in our securities speculative or risky, any one of which could materially adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition or business. These risks include, but are not limited to, those listed below. This list is not complete, and should be read together with the section titled “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, as well as the other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and the other filings that we make with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”).

Risks Related to the Macro Environment

•Inflation in the global economy, increased interest rates, political dissension and adverse global economic conditions, like the ones we are currently experiencing, could negatively affect our business and financial condition.

•Our business could be harmed by increased costs to procure power, prolonged power outages, shortages or capacity constraints as well as insufficient access to power.

•The ongoing military conflicts between Russia and Ukraine and in the Middle East could negatively affect our business and financial condition.

Risks Related to our Operations

•We experienced a cybersecurity incident in the past and may be vulnerable to future security breaches, which could disrupt our operations and have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operation and financial condition.

•Any failure of our physical infrastructure or negative impact on our ability to meet our obligations to our customers, or damage to customer infrastructure within our IBX data centers, could lead to significant costs and disruptions that could reduce our revenue and harm our business reputation and financial condition.

•We are currently making significant investments in our back-office information technology systems and processes. Difficulties from or disruptions to these efforts may interrupt our normal operations and adversely affect our business and results of operations.

•The level of insurance coverage that we purchase may prove to be inadequate.

•If we are unable to implement our evolving organizational structure, or if we are unable to recruit or retain key executives and qualified personnel, our business could be harmed.

•The failure to obtain favorable terms when we renew our IBX data center leases, or the failure to renew such leases, could harm our business and results of operations.

•We depend on a number of third parties to provide internet connectivity to our IBX data centers; if connectivity is interrupted or terminated, our results of operations and cash flow could be materially and adversely affected.

•The use of high-power density equipment may limit our ability to fully utilize our older IBX data centers.

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Risks Related to our Offerings and Customers

•Our offerings have a long sales cycle that may harm our revenue and results of operations.

•We may not be able to compete successfully against current and future competitors.

•If we cannot continue to develop, acquire, market and provide new offerings or enhancements to existing offerings that meet customer requirements and differentiate us from our competitors, our results of operations could suffer.

•We have government customers, which subjects us to risks including early termination, audits, investigations, sanctions and penalties.

•Because we depend on the development and growth of a balanced customer base, including key magnet customers, failure to attract, grow and retain this base of customers could harm our business and results of operations.

Risks Related to our Financial Results

•Our results of operations may fluctuate.

•We may incur goodwill and other intangible asset impairment charges, or impairment charges to our property, plant and equipment, which could result in a significant reduction to our earnings.

•We have incurred substantial losses in the past and may incur additional losses in the future.

Risks Related to Our Expansion Plans

•Our construction of new IBX data centers, IBX data center expansions or IBX data center redevelopment could involve significant risks to our business.

•Acquisitions present many risks, and we may not realize the financial or strategic goals that were contemplated at the time of any transaction.

•The anticipated benefits of our joint ventures may not be fully realized, or take longer to realize than expected.

•Joint venture investments could expose us to risks and liabilities in connection with the formation of the new joint ventures, the operation of such joint ventures without sole decision-making authority, and our reliance on joint venture partners who may have economic and business interests that are inconsistent with our business interests.

•If we cannot effectively manage our international operations and successfully implement our international expansion plans, our business and results of operations would be adversely impacted.

•We continue to invest in our expansion efforts, but may not have sufficient customer demand in the future to realize expected returns on these investments.

Risks Related to Our Capital Needs and Capital Strategy

•Our substantial debt could adversely affect our cash flows and limit our flexibility to raise additional capital.

•Sales or issuances of shares of our common stock may adversely affect the market price of our common stock.

•If we are not able to generate sufficient operating cash flows or obtain external financing, our ability to fund incremental expansion plans may be limited.

•Our derivative transactions expose us to counterparty credit risk.

Risks Related to Environmental Laws and Climate Change Impacts

•Environmental regulations may impose upon us new or unexpected costs.

•Our business may be adversely affected by climate change and our response to it.

•We may fail to achieve our Environmental, Social and Governance ("ESG") and sustainability goals, or may encounter objections to them, either of which may adversely affect public perception of our business and affect our relationship with our customers, our stockholders and/or other stakeholders.

Risks Related to Certain Regulations and Laws, Including Tax Laws

•Geopolitical events contribute to an already complex and evolving regulatory landscape. If we cannot comply with the evolving laws and regulations in the countries in which we operate, we may be subject to

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litigation and/or sanctions, adverse revenue impacts, increased costs and our business and results of operations could be negatively impacted.

•Government regulation related to our business or failure to comply with laws and regulations may adversely affect our business.

•Changes in U.S. or foreign tax laws, regulations, or interpretations thereof, including changes to tax rates, may adversely affect our financial statements and cash taxes.

•Our business could be adversely affected if we are unable to maintain our complex global legal entity structure.

Risks Related to Our REIT Status in the U.S.

•We have a number of risks related to our qualification as a real estate investment trust for federal income tax purposes ("REIT"), including the risk that we may not be able to maintain our qualification for taxation as a REIT which could expose us to substantial corporate income tax and have a materially adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

ITEM 1.    Business

Overview: Powering the World’s Digital Leaders

Equinix is the world's digital infrastructure companyTM. Digital leaders harness our trusted platform to bring together and interconnect the foundational infrastructure that powers their success. We enable our customers to access all the right places, partners and possibilities they need to accelerate their advantage. Platform Equinix® combines a global footprint of International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) and xScale® data centers in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa ("EMEA") regions, interconnection solutions, digital offerings, unique business and digital ecosystems and expert consulting and support. Equinix was incorporated on June 22, 1998, as a Delaware corporation and operates as a REIT for federal income tax purposes.

Al Avery and Jay Adelson founded Equinix as a network-neutral, multi-tenant data center ("MTDC") provider, where competing networks could connect and share data traffic to help scale the rapid growth of the early internet. The company’s name, Equinix (composed from the words "equality", "neutrality" and "internet exchange"), reflects that vision. The founders also believed they not only had the opportunity but also the responsibility to create a company that would be the steward of some of the most important digital infrastructure assets in the world. Over two and a half decades later, we have expanded upon that vision to build Platform Equinix, which we believe is unmatched in scale and reach.

Our interconnected data centers around the world allow our customers to bring together and interconnect the infrastructure they need to fast-track their digital advantage. With Equinix, they can scale with agility, accelerate the launch of digital offerings, deliver world-class experiences and multiply their value. We enable them to differentiate by distributing infrastructure and removing the distance between clouds, users and applications in order to reduce latency and deliver a superior customer, partner and employee experience. The Equinix global platform, and the quality of our IBX and xScale data centers, interconnection offerings and edge solutions, have enabled us to establish a critical mass of customers. As more customers choose Platform Equinix for bandwidth cost and performance reasons, it benefits their suppliers and business partners to colocate in the same data centers and connect directly with each other. This adjacency creates a network effect that attracts new customers, continuously enhances our existing customers' value and enables them to capture further economic and performance benefits from our offerings.

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In 2023, we opened nine new data centers, inclusive of new xScale sites via our joint ventures. Our new data center openings included sites in the following metros: Bogotá, Dubai, Dublin, Frankfurt, Madrid, Milan, Montreal, Tokyo and Washington D.C. When including five additional data centers which opened in January 2024, this results in an increase in our total number of data center facilities to 260. 2023 highlights include:

•In February, we announced plans to build and operate a second IBX data center in Barcelona, Spain. The new site will serve as a strategic connection point for data communications between Europe, Africa and the Middle East, with Barcelona quickly becoming a vital subsea hub.

•In June, we announced our plans for expansion into Malaysia, with an additional investment of more than $100 million to help businesses capitalize on the country’s digital transformation and economic growth. We opened our first data center in Kuala Lumpur in January 2024, which followed our expansion announcement to enter Malaysia with a data center in Johor.

•In August, we announced our plans for expansion of our footprint in Mumbai, India, to address the country’s rising demand for digital infrastructure. The new facility, called MB4, will bring Equinix’s total data centers in the country to four. MB4 will offer expanded connectivity options to major telecommunications networks along with Metro Connect® availability to the highly connected Equinix data center sites of MB1 and MB2. The first phase of MB4 is expected to open in Q1 2024 and will provide an initial capacity of 350 cabinets. When fully built out, the facility is expected to provide 700 cabinets.

•In September, we opened our new IBX data center in Montreal, Quebec ("MT2") to support customer expansions in one of the fastest-growing edge metros in the world. MT2 is our second data center in the metro and brings the full value of our platform and portfolio of solutions to Canadian businesses, including those in the rapidly growing financial services, gaming and aerospace sectors.

•We also announced an expanded relationship with Southern Cross Cables Limited ("Southern Cross") in September, which will provide a key U.S.-based interconnectivity access point for the Southern Cross NEXT ("SX NEXT") submarine cable system. SX NEXT leverages our next-generation cable landing station ("CLS") architecture, enabling rapid provisioning and cost savings.

Industry Trends: Ecosystems unlock digital opportunity

The digital economy is growing and evolving dynamically. There is a constant influx of new digital product and service providers and related digital consumers, resulting in new ecosystems forming across all industries. Leading organizations are using digital infrastructure as a strong foundation for scalability and flexibility. They are scaling into more markets, with greater flexibility, having invested in cutting-edge capabilities. Additionally, their participation in digital marketplaces offers significant advantages. Several trends have emerged as a result of these changing business models. These trends include:

•The digital presence trend underpins businesses’ prioritization of transformation to engage and deliver value electronically. To compete in the digital economy, organizations are shifting to digital solutions. The majority of global growth in Gross Domestic Product ("GDP") and revenue is coming from digital services. Digital revenue sources will be the primary drivers of economic growth in the next decade. As companies strive to shift from traditional to digital services, only half of companies analyzed, as shown by the Global Interconnection Index 2024 ("GXI"), a market study published by Equinix, are taking advantage of this opportunity. The GXI data shows that many enterprises are expanding from being consumers to providers of digital services, and not all organizations are moving fast enough.

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•The digital participation trend shows that more companies are leveraging digital ecosystems to collaborate and offer services back into the marketplaces faster than ever before. Each industry is growing its own forms of electronic exchange. Data in the GXI shows that companies are tapping into the sharing economy to create new revenue streams, showing a rapid growth curve, while fast followers (companies replicating what digital leaders are doing) are shifting gears to succeed by doubling their ecosystem interactions— doing more with less investment.

•The digital proximity trend indicates that companies are bringing their capabilities closer to business operations globally for differentiated value and revenue benefits. Additionally, as data grows exponentially, it is being distributed in proximity to where business happens. Companies need to make faster decisions, at greater scale and complexity, with more sources of data. As shown in the GXI, industries are gaining competitive advantage by investing in edge technologies.

•The sustainability trend reveals market expectations and industry regulations are making organizations prioritize sustainability and hold themselves and their business partners accountable. Sustainable businesses rely on innovation, sustainable technology and efficient digital practices to reduce emissions and achieve net-zero goals. Leaders are involving their supply chain partners, including data centers, to ensure they reduce carbon emissions. Companies also are using more efficient technologies to strengthen a sustainable foundation and scale business.

•Technology adoption trends like composable business--with companies leveraging as-a-Service offerings for commoditized functions and the emergence of artificial intelligence ("AI") ecosystems to improve efficiency and productivity are also strong trends in the market.

These trends are accelerating the need for companies like Equinix that can provide a secure, agile global business platform that leverages digital interconnection—or private data exchange—to deliver real-time interactions around the world.

As part of their digital transformation, businesses in most industries are shifting their centralized IT infrastructures to the edge to bring digital solutions closer to users for better performance, which has become a significant driver of digital business value. To realize the full potential of the edge, IT organizations require greater interconnection bandwidth. Interconnection bandwidth is defined as the total capacity provisioned to privately and directly exchange traffic, with a diverse set of partners and providers, at distributed IT exchange points inside carrier-neutral colocation data centers. Private interconnection capacity between businesses, as reported in GXI 2024, is anticipated to grow at a compound annual growth rate ("CAGR") of 34% by 2026, potentially reaching 33,578 terabits per second of data exchanged annually.

Worldwide Interconnection Bandwidth Capacity CAGR (2022 - 2026) in Terabits per Second (Tbps)

Source: GXI 2024

Equinix Business Proposition: To be the platform where the world comes together, enabling the innovations that enrich our work, life and planet

In 2023, we continued to build new digital offerings and data center offerings to further our vision to power the world’s digital leaders. On Platform Equinix, digital leaders can reach the most strategic global markets with the largest ecosystem of digital partners, with infrastructure that assembles and deploys virtually in minutes. We enable

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competitive advantage for our customers and partners by creating the foundational infrastructure capabilities that power worldwide businesses. We offer a comprehensive, integrated suite of data center and digital solutions and products to over 10,000 enterprise and service provider customers worldwide.

The following are the leading revenue-generating products and other offerings that collectively make up Platform Equinix:    

Data Center Offerings

Our global, state-of-the-art data centers meet strict standards of security, reliability, certification and sustainability. Offerings in these data centers are typically billed based on the space and power a customer consumes, are delivered under a fixed duration contract and generate monthly recurring revenue ("MRR"). Our footprint consists of 250+ data centers worldwide:

•IBX Data Centers are our vendor-neutral colocation data centers worldwide, providing our customers with secure, reliable and robust environments (including space and power) that are necessary to aggregate and distribute information and connect digital and business ecosystems globally. IBX data centers provide access to vital ecosystems where enterprises, network, cloud and SaaS providers, and business partners, can directly and securely interconnect to each other.

•xScale Data Centers are designed to serve the unique core workload deployment needs of a targeted group of hyperscale companies, which include the world's largest cloud service providers. With xScale data centers, hyperscale customers add to their core hyperscale data center deployments and existing customer access points at Equinix, allowing streamlined expansion with a single global vendor.

Equinix colocation offerings include a suite of comprehensive solutions that provide all the components required by a customer to house its IT infrastructure (or equipment). These offerings are designed to speed and streamline digital transformation and data center deployments for our customers.

•Private Cages are typically designed and built to order for a single customer, with space assigned based on purchased power allocations and planned cabinet quantity. A cage typically includes steel mesh walls with a locking door, interconnection provision such as a demarcation rack with patch panels, and cabling systems such as a ladder rack and fiber raceway. Available security accessories include dedicated cameras, biometric hand scanners and more.

•Secure Cabinets are steel-framed cabinets sized to industry standards, with lockable, fully ventilated doors, and are typically configured to order. Secure Cabinets provide a private, secure, smaller-footprint alternative to a Private Cage. Each cabinet includes an integrated, interconnection-ready demarcation panel and power circuitry sufficient to support planned utilization requirements. Secure cabinets are typically housed in a shared, secured cage within the data center facility.

•Secure Cabinet Express are ready-for-service Secure Cabinets that are pre-configured to an Equinix recommended, and most common, cabinet configuration. This configuration fits the majority of modern IT deployment requirements, providing a simplified and globally consistent colocation module for cabinet-sized deployments.

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Equinix offers a variety of enabling solutions that support a customer's need to implement, operate and maintain its colocated deployments. These solutions include both on-consumption and subscription services which may generate MRR as well as non-recurring revenue ("NRR").

•Equinix SmartView® is a fully integrated monitoring software that provides customers visibility into the operating data relevant to their specific Equinix footprint as if they were in-house. The software provides online access to real-time environmental and operating data through the Equinix Customer Portal or via either REST (application programming interfaces ("APIs") that provide customers the ability to retrieve information about their assets from every IBX location) or streaming API integrations. With real-time alerts and configurable reporting, Equinix SmartView allows customers to maintain their IBX operations and plan for future growth.

•Equinix Smart Hands® provides around-the-clock, on-site operational support service for remote management, installation and troubleshooting of customer data center equipment. Using Equinix IBX data center technicians, Smart Hands allows customers to manage their Platform Equinix data center operations from anywhere in the world.

•Equinix Smart Build ("ESB") provides customers with an easy way to accelerate and simplify world-class data center deployments with expert support. ESBs are repeatable, proven processes that address larger, more complex data center jobs, including installation and implementation of new builds and planned migrations. ESB practices deliver Equinix expertise in colocation design to optimize our customers’ data center needs, including structured cabling, labeling and documentation, procurement recommendations and coordination, and secure de-installation.

Interconnection Offerings

Our interconnection solutions connect businesses directly, securely and dynamically within and between our data centers across our global platform. These solutions are typically billed based on the outbound connections from a customer and generate MRR.

•Equinix Fabric® provides secure, on-demand, software-defined interconnection. Built specifically for digital infrastructure, Equinix Fabric enables businesses to connect globally to their choice of thousands of networking, storage, compute and application service providers in the industry’s largest infrastructure ecosystem. As the foundation of Platform Equinix’s interconnection capability, Equinix Fabric also enables customers to quickly and easily connect between the physical and virtual digital infrastructures they have deployed in Equinix data centers globally.

•Equinix Fabric Cloud Router makes it easy to connect applications and data across different clouds. With high-performance and secure private connections, protecting data from exposure to the public internet, these enterprise-grade connections offer virtually unlimited bandwidth and built-in resiliency. Fabric Cloud Router also reduces networking costs, lowers cloud egress charges and enables elastic bandwidth consumption so customers pay for only what they need.

•Cross Connects provide a point-to-point cable link between two Equinix customers in the same data center. Cross Connects deliver fast, convenient, affordable and highly reliable connectivity and data exchange with business partners and service providers within the Equinix ecosystem.

•Equinix Internet Exchange® enables networks, content providers and large enterprises to exchange internet traffic through the largest global peering solution. Service providers can aggregate traffic to multiple counterparties, called peers, on one physical port and handle multiple small peers while moving high-traffic peers to private interconnections. This reduces latency for end users when accessing content and applications.

•Equinix Internet Access is an agile, scalable, resilient and high-performing internet access solution. With multiple upstream Tier 1 providers per metro, connections to all Equinix and major third-party internet exchanges, and over 300 private peering relationships, it delivers superior availability and performance. It serves as a one-stop shop for businesses, offering both physical and virtual connection options with Equinix Fabric to deliver primary and secondary internet access solutions. Available in 50+ markets, it allows for scalable bandwidth to meet growing usage needs, empowering businesses in the digital age.

•Fiber Connect provides dark fiber links between customers and partners between multiple Equinix data centers. Fiber Connect enables fast, convenient and affordable integration with partners, customers and service providers across the global Equinix digital ecosystem. It supports highly reliable, extremely low-latency communication, system integration and data exchange.

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Digital Offerings

Our edge solutions help businesses rapidly deploy as a Service networking, security and hardware across our global data center footprint as an alternative to buying, owning and managing the physical infrastructure. Our edge solutions are typically billed based on the number of instances and the capacity used by a customer and generate MRR.

•Network Edge allows customers to modernize networks within minutes, by deploying network functions virtualization ("NFV") from multiple vendors across Equinix metros. Companies can select, deploy and connect virtual network solutions at the edge quickly, with no additional hardware requirements.

•Equinix Metal® allows enterprises, SaaS companies and digital service providers to provision interconnected bare metal resources in minutes instead of months, while reducing the capital expenditures and operational requirements of owning hardware. They can also reduce cloud costs while retaining the flexibility and operational expenditures of cloud solutions via on-demand, reserved or spot market capacity in Equinix’s global data centers using the Equinix Metal portal or DevOps-friendly APIs and integrations. DevOps, a combination of "development" and "operations," aligns collaboration between software development ("Dev") and IT operations ("Ops") skills and experiences to build, test and deploy APIs and other functionalities quickly.

Competition

While a large number of enterprises and service providers, such as hyperscale cloud service providers, own their own data centers, we believe the industry is shifting away from single-tenant solutions to customers outsourcing some or all of their IT housing and interconnection requirements to third-party facilities, such as those operated by Equinix. This shift is being accelerated by the increasing adoption of hybrid multicloud architectures and the adoption of artificial intelligence.

Historically, the outsourcing market was served by large telecommunications carriers that bundled their products and services with their colocation offerings. The data center market landscape has evolved to include private and vendor-neutral MTDC providers, public and private cloud providers, managed infrastructure and application hosting providers, and systems integrators. It is estimated that Equinix is one of more than 2,200 companies that provide MTDC offerings around the world. The global MTDC market is highly fragmented. Each of these data center solutions providers can bundle various colocation, interconnection and network offerings, outsourced IT infrastructure solutions and managed services. We believe that this outsourcing trend has accelerated and is likely to continue to accelerate in the coming years, especially in light of the movement to digital business, the use of multiple cloud service providers, and the adoption of artificial intelligence.

Equinix is differentiated in this market by being able to offer customers a global platform that reaches over 30 countries and contains the industry’s largest and most active ecosystem of partners in our sites, including access to a leading share of cloud on-ramps, and an increasingly diverse ecosystem of networks and cloud and IT service providers. This ecosystem creates a “network effect,” which improves performance and lowers the cost for our customers, enabling them to become digital leaders, and is a significant source of competitive advantage for Equinix. Additionally, our digital solutions portfolio enables customers to bring together physical and programmable technologies like compute, storage, network and applications to build a foundation for their company's digital operations.

Customers

Our customers include telecommunications carriers, mobile and other network services providers, cloud and IT services providers, digital media and content providers, financial services companies, and global enterprise ecosystems in various industries. We provide each company access to a choice of business partners and solutions based on their colocation, interconnection and managed IT service needs, and delivered 99.999%+ operational uptime across our global data centers in 2023. As of December 31, 2023, we had over 10,000 customers worldwide. No one customer made up 10% or more of our total business revenues for the year ended December 31, 2023.

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The following companies represent some of our leading customers and partners:

We serve our customers with a direct sales force and channel marketing program. We organize our sales force by customer type, as well as by establishing a sales presence in diverse geographic regions, which enables efficient servicing of the customer base from a network of regional offices. We also support our customers with a global customer care organization.

Human Capital

As of December 31, 2023, we had 13,151 employees worldwide with 5,953 based in the Americas, 4,267 based in EMEA and 2,931 based in Asia-Pacific. Of those employees, 5,617 employees were in engineering and operations, 2,089 employees were in sales and marketing and 5,445 employees were in management, finance and administration. As of December 31, 2023, approximately 72% of our workforce identified as men, approximately 27% identified as women and less than 1% declined to identify. Women's representation in leadership (defined as VP and above) increased year-over-year to 32%.

At Equinix, we strive to build a culture where every employee, every day, can say “I’m Safe, I Belong and I Matter” and where our workforce, at all levels, reflects and represents the communities in which we operate. Our objective is to continue to make our culture a critical competitive advantage, engaging every leader and every employee in the process. To ensure we are upholding our core corporate values and making progress towards our aspirational goals, we monitor employee satisfaction through a quarterly pulse survey, which is one of our listening mechanisms. In 2023, employee satisfaction scores remained steady between 83-84 out of 100 each quarter, resulting in an average score of 83 for Equinix, six points higher than the benchmark score of the top 25th percentile of other companies. Managers use their quarterly pulse survey results to engage in dialogue with their teams about what is top of mind for our employees and how we can do better.

Attracting, developing and retaining talent at all levels is vital to our continued success and we offer industry competitive compensation and benefits, along with development opportunities to help every employee achieve their full potential. We continue to benefit from talent sourcing programs such as our global new-to-career programs as well as pathways programs for veterans and women returning to the workforce. In 2023, we continued to enhance our portfolio of development programs for our employees and continued use of a system-enabled approach to goal setting, development planning and performance assessment to support objectivity and accountability in our talent management process. We offer development tools and opportunities to our employees such as online learning, manager training, including on bias mitigation and cultural humility, professional coaching and 360-degree assessments for eligible employees as well as our leadership program specifically designed for high potential employees at the Director level and above.

We believe in equitable pay and equitable opportunity at every level of the organization. Equinix remains committed to ensuring we have consistent practices in place to recognize, reward and promote all employees, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or other protected class. Equinix operates a rigorous governance framework to manage pay and other compensation elements to ensure that all reward decisions are made equitably and without discrimination or bias. All roles are mapped and graded to one consistent global organizational framework. Each grade has a specific pay range created by benchmarking against the external market in the country in which the role is located. This global framework is also used to determine target levels for annual

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bonuses and long-term incentives. We strive to annually update our market data globally where information is available.

We have continued to work towards integrating diversity, inclusion and belonging ("DIB") into every aspect of how we run our business. In 2020, we embarked on a multi-year DIB strategy with governance through a DIB Council chaired by our CEO and CHRO, and in partnership with our Sustainability Program Office, that oversees our progress on ESG matters. Our DIB strategy focuses on attracting, developing and retaining a diverse, global workforce; building leadership capability and accountability; and empowering our people to bring DIB to life. We have built multiple pathways to reach new talent from diverse communities. In 2023, we continued to forge partnerships and invest in tools and systems to grow and support our inclusive hiring practices and launch inclusive talent marketing efforts to reach a wider candidate pool more effectively. For example, in 2023 our Talent Acquisition Team welcomed our first neurodiverse intern cohort in partnership with Disability:IN and our CEO signed a pledge committing to disability inclusion. The Global Military Pathways program continues to show success with military candidates and hires across all regions and our Recruiting Pathways programs continue to focus on finding talent with skills and experience gained from adjacent industries and experiences to enrich the diversity of thought and experience on our teams. We have also embedded diversity and inclusive behavior competencies in our leadership profiles and added coaching tools as well as manager training on leading inclusive teams to our development program.

Our employee connection networks ("EECNs") are integral to our DIB strategy and play an important role in creating belonging and advocating for the needs and goals of communities with common identities, cultures or backgrounds. Each of our nine EECNs represents an identity/community that is marginalized or shares unique challenges. Collaborating with one another, our EECNs work together to shape, support, and execute plans aligned with our shared vision and values at Equinix. Some of our EECN leaders sit on Equinix EECN and DIB Councils where they represent their communities and share input based on their lived-experiences to influence discussions and decisions around business policies and strategies. In 2023, we strengthened our dedication to our EECN leaders by hosting an inaugural EECN Summit where leaders participated in panels with internal and external speakers, resource fairs and strategy sessions. We also introduced a recognition program that provides acknowledgement, exposure, compensation and developmental opportunities to recognize EECN members who have gone above-and-beyond in leading their respective EECNs. EECNs have continued to be a leading contributor to a positive work environment, employee satisfaction and overall organizational success. We also recognize that creating the best workplace and culture we can requires a global effort with localized awareness and approaches. In 2020, we launched WeAreEquinix employee teams empowered to create, localize and promote purpose, inclusion and belonging for their locations across the world. Through live and virtual events, campaigns, and collaboration with the business and their local communities, these volunteer leaders create opportunities to engage in the following areas: Wellbeing, Green and Sustainability, Community Impact, Fun and Creativity, DIB, and Employee Networks. We currently have WeAreEquinix teams in 38 locations who are working on strengthening belonging and inclusion for our workforce.

In 2023, we hosted Days of Understanding events as part of an initiative of CEO ACT!ON, a pledge Equinix has taken along with hundreds of other companies to embrace differences in our organizations, educate our people and build more inclusive cultures inside and outside of our workplaces. As part of this partnership, Equinix employees who became CEO ACT!ON fellows focused on creating impactful solutions to systemic inequities and bridging the digital divide by launching a pilot program designed to make reliable, affordable internet services available in underserved communities in the states of Michigan, New York and Texas in the United States.

Lastly, Equinix was recognized for our leading social sustainability efforts in 2023 through the following awards:

•1st in industry and 17th overall by JUST Capital

•Diversity & Inclusion Index by Alliance for Global Inclusion

•Diversity Equity & Inclusion Silver Award by NAREIT

•#3 in Fortune 500 in Religious Equity Diversity Inclusion Award

•100 out of 100 score for Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index

•Best Places to Work for IT by Computerworld

Our Community Impact program promotes connection and belonging, and enables employees to give back, with the support of Equinix, to the communities in which we work and live. In 2023, employees volunteered 25,300 service hours and approximately $2 million was donated through employee giving, corporate matching funds and

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grants. In 2022, the Equinix Foundation was launched with a $50M contribution and a focus on the advancement of digital inclusion—from access to technology and connectivity to the skills needed to thrive in today's digitally driven world. In 2023, the Equinix Foundation celebrated its one-year anniversary and continues to make strides in co-funding with partners and organizations dedicated in addressing the digital divide such as Big Hope and ClapTech.

We believe our commitment to the highest standards of honesty, integrity and ethical behavior differentiates our business as much as our technology. We promote these high standards through a number of policies including the Equinix Code of Business Conduct. All employees are required to complete trainings on ethics and the company’s anti-bribery and corruption policies. In addition, we maintain a confidential ethics helpline where employees are encouraged to speak up if they have any questions or concerns that our code is being violated. We have a zero-tolerance, non-retaliation policy that protects our employees when they speak up.

We have continued a number of precautionary measures in line with our business continuity and pandemic plans to minimize the risk of operational impacts and to protect the health and safety of employees, customers, partners and our communities. As we look forward to the future of work, and more importantly amplifying Equinix’s vibrant culture, we are providing flexible, hybrid work opportunities in many roles, enhanced collaboration technologies for everyone, and activity-based workspaces at home or onsite. We recognize that the new normal will require changing behaviors. As such, we are providing learning opportunities and best practices to ensure our meetings, events and work sessions are inclusive and equitable for virtual and in-person participation. Employee well-being has been central to these efforts, driven globally through offerings such as health programs, ergonomic support, technology reimbursements, and wellness days.

We believe that all of these programs and initiatives support our human capital goals, align with our company culture, and increase employee satisfaction.

Sustainability

At Equinix, our Future First sustainability strategy rallies our people and partners to envision a better future and then do what it takes to make it happen. As the world’s digital infrastructure leader, we have the responsibility to harness the power of technology to create a more accessible, equitable and sustainable future. The ESG initiatives comprising our Future First strategy focus on the material issues that have the greatest impact on our stakeholders and our business. We continue to progress on our sustainability goals and look to build a business and world that reflects our purpose to bring the world together on our platform to create innovations that will enrich our work, life and planet. We document our ESG progress in our Annual Report and in our annual Corporate Sustainability Report located on our corporate website.

In 2021, we committed to becoming climate neutral across our global operations by 2030 and set a validated near-term science-based target (“SBT”) for emissions reduction across our global operations and supply chain. Our climate commitments are a critical step to ensure that we continue to advance investments and innovations to reduce greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions and keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in alignment with the Paris Climate Agreement.

As a part of our Future First sustainability strategy, we published an Environmental Sustainability and Global Climate Change Policy in 2021 to detail our approach and practices related to the environment, climate change,

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resource efficiency and reporting. In alignment with our strategy and policy, we are also evaluating our material climate change risks and opportunities based on the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (“TCFD”). In 2022, we undertook a qualitative and quantitative climate-related scenario analysis across eight climate scenarios in line with TCFD recommendations. This included scenario analysis modeling for the highest priority physical risks. We are continuing our work to embed climate change risk management into our business where relevant.

Environmental Performance

Our energy usage, specifically electricity consumption, creates our largest environmental impact. Equinix was the first data center company to commit to a long-term goal of 100% renewable energy coverage across our global portfolio. We use local renewable energy sources where possible, seek new or recently built renewable sources and advocate for favorable renewable energy policies. In the U.S., we purchase nearly 2.6 million megawatt-hours ("MWh") of green power annually from a portfolio of renewable energy projects, utility green tariffs and Renewable Energy Certificates ("RECs"), including 225 MW of wind power under long-term power purchase agreements ("PPAs") located in Texas and Oklahoma. As of December 2023, we executed 18 PPAs in Europe which will bring 687 MW of new wind and solar capacity to Finland, France, Portugal, Spain and Sweden when the projects are operational in 2024, 2025 and 2026. In 2022, 96% of our global electricity consumption, and 100% of U.S. electricity consumption, was covered by renewable energy sources.

We are committed to transparently measuring and reporting our global carbon footprint across direct ("Scope 1"), indirect energy ("Scope 2") and indirect value chain ("Scope 3") emissions. Since 2019, we have achieved a 23% absolute reduction in operational GHG emissions from a 2019 baseline year (Scope 1 and Scope 2 market-based metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent ("mtCO2e")), even as the company increased its energy consumption by 36% over the same time period. Equinix achieved an 'A' leadership score for climate action and annual disclosures within the 2023 CDP Climate Change Survey. CDP is a global non-governmental organization dedicated to helping investors and companies measure and manage their climate risks, recognized our commitments, actions and progress on climate change.

We are leveraging technology and innovation to encourage commercialization of solutions that will enable the “Data Center of the Future”. To support our ongoing sustainability initiatives and commitment to innovation, since 2020, we issued six traunches of green bonds approximating $4.9 billion. Our Green Finance Framework aligns our sustainability commitments with our long-term financing needs and highlights our pipeline of green projects and data center innovations. As of December 31, 2023, we had fully allocated the net proceeds from the approximate $4.9 billion in issued green bonds to finance or refinance, in whole or in part, ongoing and new projects in categories of green buildings, renewable energy and energy efficiency.

We are committed to advancing environmental progress across other areas of our operations. While we have historically focused our environmental impact via our energy consumption, to address the growing importance of water within our operations, we launched a Sustainable Water Management Program in 2021. This program drove the implementation of tools to aid in the tracking of water used to cool our data centers, helping create a baseline of our Water Usage Effectiveness ("WUE") to inform future actions. We consider the consumption of water in the design and operation of our facilities and are developing a coordinated global approach to water measurement and management. Through our efforts to establish the European Climate-Neutral Data Centre Operator Pact in 2021, Equinix and the EU data center industry have also committed to advancing initiatives beyond renewable energy and energy efficiency, including water efficiency, waste reduction, and circular economy principles.

Sustainability Accounting Standards Board ("SASB") Disclosures

SASB published the Sustainability Accounting Standard for the Real Estate Industry ("Real Estate Standard") in October 2018. We have aligned our SASB disclosures with the Real Estate Standard to enhance corporate disclosure around ESG performance. In our comprehensive disclosures in our annual Corporate Sustainability Report, we also document our progress against metrics as outlined in other frameworks such as the Global Reporting Initiative ("GRI"), UN Sustainable Development Goals ("SDGs") and TCFD. The following tables detail our energy metrics, aligned with the SASB Real Estate Standard. We intend to expand our reporting around the Real Estate Standard in the coming years.

The following metrics represent the performance of our colocation facilities in the calendar years specified. Energy, renewable energy and GHG emissions are independently assured to ISO 14064-3:2019 Standards for the

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quantification and reporting of GHG emissions (Scope 1, 2 and 3). Calendar year data for 2023 will become available in Q2 2024 and will be published in our annual Corporate Sustainability Report located on our sustainability website.

Energy Management: Energy Consumption

Year	Energy Consumption Data as a % of Floor Area	Total Energy Consumed by Portfolio Area with Data Coverage (MWh) (1)	Like-for-Like Change in Energy Consumption of Portfolio Area with Data Coverage (MWh) (2)	Grid Electricity Consumption as a % of Energy Consumption	Energy Consumption from Renewable Sources (MWh) (3)	Renewable Energy as a % of Energy Consumption (4)	Like-for-Like Change in Energy Consumption from Renewable Sources of Portfolio Area with Data Coverage (MWh) (2) (3)	Renewable Energy as a % of Electricity Consumption
2021(5)(6)	98.0%	7,130,000	23.3%	94.6%	6,689,000	94%	26.1%	95%
2022(7)(8)	96.3%	7,820,000	29.1%	94.2%	6,995,000	90%	32.1%	91%

(1)The scope of energy includes: energy used onsite (natural gas and diesel), energy procured (purchased electricity, electric power from fuel cells under power purchase agreements, and chilled water).

(2)Like-for-like computed for stabilized asset list for the overlapping list of sites designated as stabilized in 2021 and 2022.

(3)Excludes renewable energy inherently supplied by the standard utility grid mix. Equinix buys renewable energy for the entire electricity consumption of sites including customer and overhead load. The instruments used include: RECs from PPAs, International RECs ("I-RECs"), Guarantees of Origin ("GOOs") and Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin ("REGOs") from suppliers, green tariffs and bundled contracts.

(4)Equinix's global renewable energy percentage reported for RE100 and CDP was 96%, which is comprised of 7,434 GWh of renewables out of 7,751 GWh of electric power consumption. The discrepancy in the totals arises from non-IBX data center sites' energy usage and non-electric power energy consumption.

(5)Recently constructed or acquired sites for which no utility data is available are excluded from the 2021 SASB metrics reporting boundary. These include certain data centers in EMEA (FR9x) and APAC (OS2x, OS3, PE3) and Equinix's GPX (India) acquisition sites (MB1, MB2). Reseller sites are also excluded in both the gross floor area and the energy metrics (DA99, OS99, SH1).

(6)2021 portfolio coverage includes xScaleTM sites: LD11x, LD13x, PA8x, PA9x, SP5x, TY12x.

(7)Recently constructed or acquired sites for which no utility data is available are excluded from the 2022 SASB metrics reporting boundary. These include certain data centers in AMER (LM1, ST1, ST2, ST3, ST4) and EMEA (AB1, AC1, LG1, LG2, PA10). Reseller sites are also excluded in the energy metrics (DA99, OS99, SH1).

(8)2022 portfolio coverage excludes xScaleTM sites: DB5x, SY9x.

Energy Management: Green Building Ratings

Our environmental efforts aim to deliver meaningful and measurable progress against sustainability goals that positively impact our customers, partners, investors and employees. Our data centers are designed with high operational standards and energy efficiency in mind. Our data centers are planned holistically to incorporate the needs of our communities and we aim to minimize the use of all resources in our operations. We evaluate cost-efficient opportunities to enhance energy efficiency and buy renewable energy for existing or acquired sites.

We are protecting our planet's resources by pioneering green data center innovations and building and operating energy-efficient data centers around the world. Our Energy Efficiency Center of Excellence is driving a global approach to improving global operational efficiency across our existing IBX locations from lighting and airflow management to efficient cooling innovations. The program also engages customers to manage their implementations more sustainably at our facilities, leading to overall improved site efficiencies.

We certify our data centers to numerous green buildings and energy management certifications and schemes. These include USGBC LEED green buildings certifications, ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management Standard, ISO 50001:2011 Energy Management Standard, BCA Green Mark, U.S. EPA Energy Star for Data Centers and others. In 2021, Equinix became a U.S. Green Building Council ("USGBC") Gold member, aligning with the developer of the LEED rating system and furthering our commitment to green buildings. To increase the scalability of certification within our portfolio, we developed a global LEED Scorecard that will help us ensure every new build is prioritizing the design and community guidelines developed by USGBC.

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Data centers receiving green building ratings in 2023 covered 811,000 gross sq. ft. While we have additional certifications that are pending final submissions, the following new sites received ratings in 2023:

Data Center	Metro Area	Rating Scheme	Level Achieved
DX3	Dubai, UAE	LEED	Silver
FR11x	Frankfurt, Germany	LEED	Certified
LD11x	London, United Kingdom	LEED	Silver
ML5	Milan, Italy	LEED	Gold
MX3x	Mexico City, Mexico	LEED	Certified
PE3	Perth, Australia	LEED	Certified
SE4	Seattle, USA	Green Globes	One

In 2023, we had 24.8 million gross sq. ft., or 83% of our global footprint, in operation with green buildings and energy management certifications. Within the U.S., we had 7.9 million gross sq. ft., or 78% of our footprint, under certification, including 1.5 million gross sq. ft., or 14.6% of U.S. footprint, having achieved U.S. EPA Energy Star for Data Centers. We are currently evaluating enrolling additional sites in the Energy Star program. We disclose these and other site-level details about our data centers on our sustainability website.

Year	Total Gross sq. ft. (million)(1)	Area of Eligible Portfolio with Green Building Rating (million sq. ft.)(2)	Eligible Portfolio with Green Building Rating (%)
Global Total through 2023	29.8	24.8	83%
U.S. Total through 2023	10.1	7.9 1.5 (Energy Star)	78% 14.6% (Energy Star)

(1)Ratings included in our totals: ISO 50001 Energy Management, ISO 14001 Environmental Management, LEED green buildings certifications, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star for Data Centers, BCA Green Mark, NABERS and Green Globes.

(2)We are currently evaluating our approach to U.S. EPA Energy Star for Data Centers. As of December 2023, eight sites received Energy Star for Data Centers recognition, representing 15% of our U.S. portfolio. In contrast, our U.S. portfolio has 19 LEED-certified data centers or 42% of the U.S. portfolio by gross square footage.

Our Business Segment Financial Information

We currently operate in three reportable segments comprised of our Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific geographic regions. Information attributable to each of our reportable segments is set forth in Note 17 within the Consolidated Financial Statements.

Available Information

Equinix owns and maintains intellectual property in the form of trademarks, patents, application programming interfaces, customer portals and a variety of products and other offerings.

We were incorporated in Delaware in June 1998. We are required to file reports under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). The SEC maintains an internet website at http://www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information.

You may also obtain copies of our annual reports on Form 10-K, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and our current reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to such reports, free of charge by visiting the Investor Relations page on our website, www.equinix.com. These reports are available as soon as reasonably practical after we file them with the SEC. Information contained on or accessible through our website is not part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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ITEM 1A.    Risk Factors

In addition to the other information contained in this report, the following risk factors should be considered carefully in evaluating our business:

Risk Factors

Risks Related to the Macro Environment

Inflation in the global economy, increased interest rates, political dissension and adverse global economic conditions, like the ones we are currently experiencing, could negatively affect our business and financial condition.

Inflation is impacting various aspects of our business. We are also experiencing an increase in our costs to procure power and supply chain issues globally. Rising prices for materials related to our IBX data center construction and our data center offerings, energy and gas prices, as well as rising wages and benefits costs negatively impact our business by increasing our operating costs. Further, disagreement in the U.S. Congress on government spending levels could increase the possibility of a government shutdown, further adversely affecting global economic conditions. The adverse economic conditions we are currently experiencing may cause a decrease in sales as some customers may need to take cost cutting measures or scale back their operations. This could result in churn in our customer base, reductions in revenues from our offerings, adverse effects to our days of sales outstanding in accounts receivable ("DSO"), longer sales cycles, slower adoption of new technologies and increased price competition, which could adversely affect our liquidity. Customers and vendors filing for bankruptcy could also lead to costly and time-intensive actions with adverse effects, including greater difficulty or delay in accounts receivable collection. The uncertain economic environment could also have an impact on our foreign exchange forward contracts if our counterparties' credit deteriorates or if they are otherwise unable to perform their obligations. Further, volatility in the financial markets and rising interest rates like we are currently experiencing could affect our ability to access the capital markets at a time when we desire, or need, to do so which could have an impact on our flexibility to pursue additional expansion opportunities and maintain our desired level of revenue growth in the future.

Our efforts to mitigate the risks associated with these adverse conditions may not be successful and our business and growth could be adversely affected.

Our business could be harmed by increased costs to procure power, prolonged power outages, shortages or capacity constraints as well as insufficient access to power.

Any power outages, shortages, capacity constraints or significant increases in the cost of power may have an adverse effect on our business and our results of operations.

In each of our markets, we rely on third parties, third party infrastructure, governments, and global suppliers to provide a sufficient amount of power to maintain our IBX data centers and meet the needs of our current and future customers. Any limitation on the delivered energy supply could limit our ability to operate our IBX data centers. These limitations could have a negative impact on a given IBX data center(s) or limit our ability to grow our business which could negatively affect our financial performance and results of operations.

Each new facility requires access to significant quantities of electricity. Limitations on generation, transmission and distribution may limit our ability to obtain sufficient power capacity for potential expansion sites in new or existing markets. Utility companies may impose onerous operating conditions to any approval or provision of power or we may experience significant delays and substantial increased costs to provide the level of electrical service required by our current or future IBX data center designs. Our ability to find appropriate sites for expansion may also be limited by access to power, especially as we design our data centers to the specifications of new and evolving technologies such as artificial intelligence which are more power-intensive.

Our IBX data centers are affected by problems accessing electricity sources, such as planned or unplanned power outages and limitations on transmission or distribution of power. Unplanned power outages, including, but not limited to those relating to large storms, earthquakes, fires, tsunamis, cyber-attacks, physical attacks on utility

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infrastructure, war, and any failures of electrical power grids more generally, and planned power outages by public utilities, such as Pacific Gas and Electric Company's practice of planned outages in California to minimize fire risks, could harm our customers and our business. Employees working from home could be subjected to power outages at home which could be difficult to track and could affect the day-to-day operations of our non-IBX data center employees. Our international operations are sometimes located outside of developed, reliable electricity markets, where we are exposed to some insecurity in supply associated with technical and regulatory problems, as well as transmission constraints. Some of our IBX data centers are located in leased buildings where, depending upon the lease requirements and number of tenants involved, we may or may not control some or all of the infrastructure including generators and fuel tanks. As a result, in the event of a power outage, we could be dependent upon the landlord, as well as the utility company, to restore the power. We attempt to limit our exposure to system downtime by using backup generators, which are in turn supported by onsite fuel storage and through contracts with fuel suppliers, but these measures may not always prevent downtime or solve for long-term or large-scale outages. Any outage or supply disruption could adversely affect our business, customer experience and revenues.

We are currently experiencing inflation and volatility pressures in the energy market globally. Various macroeconomic factors are contributing to the instability and global power shortage including the Russia and Ukraine war, severe weather events, governmental regulations, government relations and inflation. While we have aimed to minimize our risk, via hedging, conservation, and other efficiencies, we expect the cost for power to continue to be volatile and unpredictable and subject to inflationary pressures. We believe we have made appropriate estimates for these costs in our forecasting, but the current unpredictable energy market could materially affect our financial forecasting, results of operations and financial condition.

The ongoing military conflicts between Russia and Ukraine and in the Middle East could negatively affect our business and financial condition.

The war in Ukraine has led to market disruptions, including significant volatility in commodity prices, credit and capital markets, an increase in cybersecurity incidents as well as supply chain disruptions.

Additionally, various of Russia’s actions have led to sanctions and other penalties being levied by the U.S., the European Union, the United Kingdom, and other countries, as well as other public and private actors and companies, against Russia and certain other geographic areas, including agreement to remove certain Russian financial institutions from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication payment system and restrictions on imports of Russian oil, liquified natural gas and coal. We do not have operations in Russia or Ukraine and historically we have had a limited number of Russian and Ukrainian customers, which we continue to screen against applicable sanctions lists per our standard processes. Although we continue to devote resources to this screening effort, including the use of software solutions, the sanctions screening process remains partially manual, and the sanctions lists continue to evolve and vary by country. We continue to address necessary changes in global sanctions laws and modify our processes as necessary in light of these evolving laws. A material failure to comply with global sanctions laws could have a negative effect on our reputation, business and financial condition.

In addition to compliance with applicable sanctions laws, we are currently limiting the ability of Russian customers to place orders for our offerings unless, after reviewing these orders, we believe they are aligned with our stated objectives in support of Ukraine. We do not allow purchases from Russian partners or suppliers and have committed to not make any direct or indirect investment in Russia absent an end to this conflict. In addition, for our customers located in Ukraine, we are currently providing offerings free of charge and may continue to do so in the future.

The associated disruptions in the oil and gas markets have caused, and could continue to cause, significant increases in energy prices, which could have a material effect on our business. Additional potential sanctions and penalties have also been proposed and/or threatened. If Russia further reduces or turns off energy supplies to Europe, our EMEA operations could be adversely affected. Russian military actions and the resulting sanctions could further affect the global economy and financial markets and lead to instability and lack of liquidity in capital markets, potentially making it more difficult for us to obtain additional debt or equity financing on attractive terms in the future.

In the case of the Middle East conflict, the current situation is extremely volatile. It is possible that such events will continue to adversely impact the level of economic activity globally and that we will face increased regulatory and legal complexities in the regions affected thus impacting our business and employees, our financial condition

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and results of operations. Additionally, any sustained military action in the area of the Red Sea could contribute to supply chain challenges.

Prolonged unfavorable economic conditions or uncertainty, including as a result of the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine or in the Middle East, may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Any of the foregoing may also magnify the impact of other risks described in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Risks Related to our Operations

We experienced a cybersecurity incident in the past and may be vulnerable to future security breaches, which could disrupt our operations and have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operation and financial condition.

Despite our efforts to protect against cyber-attacks, we are not fully insulated from such threats. For example, in September 2020, we discovered ransomware on certain of our internal systems. While the incident was resolved and did not cause a material disruption to our systems nor result in any material costs to us, we expect we will continue to face risks associated with unauthorized access to our computer systems, loss or destruction of data, computer viruses, ransomware, malware, distributed denial-of-service attacks or other malicious activities. In the course of our business we utilize vendors and other partners who are also sources of cyber risks to us. In addition, our adaptation to a hybrid working model, that includes both work from home and in an office, could expose us to new security risks.

We offer professional solutions to our customers where we consult on data center solutions and assist with implementations. We also offer managed services in certain of our foreign jurisdictions outside of the U.S. where we manage the data center infrastructure for our customers. The access to our clients' networks and data, which is gained from these solutions, creates some risk that our clients' networks or data could be improperly accessed. We may also design our clients' cloud storage systems in such a way that exposes our clients to increased risk of data breach. If we were held responsible for any such breach, it could result in a significant loss to us, including damage to our client relationships, harm to our brand and reputation, and legal liability.

As techniques used to breach security change frequently and are generally not recognized until launched against a target, we may not be able to promptly detect that a cyber breach has occurred, or implement security measures in a timely manner or, if and when implemented, we may not be able to determine the extent to which these measures could be circumvented. Recent developments in the cyber threat landscape include use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as an increased number of cyber extortion and ransomware attacks, with the potential for higher financial ransom demand amounts and increasing sophistication and variety of ransomware techniques and methodology. Further, any adoption of artificial intelligence by us or by third parties may pose new security challenges. A party who is able to compromise the security measures on our networks or the security of our infrastructure could misappropriate the proprietary or sensitive information of Equinix, our customers, including government customers, or the personal information of our employees, or cause interruptions or malfunctions in our operations or our customers' operations. As we provide assurances to our customers that we provide a high level of security, such a compromise could be particularly harmful to our brand and reputation. We also may be required to expend significant capital and resources to protect against such threats or to alleviate problems caused by cyber breaches in our physical or virtual security systems. Any breaches that may occur in the future could expose us to increased risk of lawsuits, regulatory penalties, loss of existing or potential customers, damage relating to loss of proprietary information, harm to our reputation and increases in our security costs, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial performance and results of operations. The cybersecurity regulatory landscape continues to evolve and compliance with the proposed reporting requirements could further complicate our ability to resolve cyber-attacks. We maintain insurance coverage for cyber risks, but such coverage may be unavailable or insufficient to cover our losses.

Any failure of our physical infrastructure or negative impact on our ability to meet our obligations to our customers, or damage to customer infrastructure within our IBX data centers, could lead to significant costs and disruptions that could reduce our revenue and harm our business reputation and financial condition.

Our business depends on providing customers with highly reliable solutions. We must safeguard our customers' infrastructure and equipment located in our IBX data centers and ensure our IBX data centers and non-IBX

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business operations remain operational at all times. We own certain of our IBX data centers, but others are leased by us, and we rely on the landlord for basic maintenance of our leased IBX data centers and office buildings and, in some cases, the landlord is responsible for the infrastructure that runs the building such as power connections, UPSs and backup power generators. If such landlord has not maintained a leased property sufficiently, we may be forced into an early exit from the center which could be disruptive to our business. Furthermore, we continue to acquire IBX data centers not built by us. If we discover that these buildings and their infrastructure assets are not in the condition we expected when they were acquired, we may be required to incur substantial additional costs to repair or upgrade the IBX data centers. Newly acquired data centers also may not have the same power infrastructure and design in place as our own IBX data centers. These legacy designs could require upgrades in order to meet our standards and our customers’ expectations. Until the legacy systems are brought up to our standards, customers in these IBX data centers could be exposed to higher risks of unexpected power outages. We have experienced power outages because of these legacy design issues in the past and we could experience these in the future.

Problems at one or more of our IBX data centers or corporate offices, whether or not within our control, could result in service interruptions or significant infrastructure or equipment damage. These could result from numerous factors, including but not limited to:

•human error;

•equipment failure;

•physical, electronic and cybersecurity breaches;

•fire, earthquake, hurricane, flood, tornado and other natural disasters;

•extreme temperatures;

•water damage;

•fiber cuts;

•power loss;

•terrorist acts;

•sabotage and vandalism;

•global pandemics such as the COVID-19 pandemic;

•inability of our operations employees to access our IBX data centers for any reason; and

•failure of business partners who provide our resale products.

We have service level commitment obligations to certain customers. As a result, service interruptions or significant equipment damage in our IBX data centers could result in difficulty maintaining service level commitments to these customers and potential claims related to such failures. Because our IBX data centers are critical to many of our customers' businesses, service interruptions or significant equipment damage in our IBX data centers could also result in lost profits or other indirect or consequential damages to our customers. We cannot guarantee that a court would enforce any contractual limitations on our liability in the event that one of our customers brings a lawsuit against us as a result of a problem at one of our IBX data centers and we may decide to reach settlements with affected customers irrespective of any such contractual limitations. Any such settlement may result in a reduction of revenue under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"). In addition, any loss of service, equipment damage or inability to meet our service level commitment obligations could reduce the confidence of our customers and could consequently impair our ability to obtain and retain customers, which would adversely affect both our ability to generate revenues and our results of operations.

Furthermore, we are dependent upon internet service providers, telecommunications carriers and other website operators in the Americas, Asia-Pacific and EMEA regions and elsewhere, some of which have experienced significant system failures and electrical outages in the past. Our customers may in the future experience difficulties due to system failures unrelated to our systems and offerings. If, for any reason, these providers fail to provide the required services, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely impacted.

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Our IBX data center employees are critical to our ability to maintain our business operations and reach our service level commitments. Although we have redundancies built into our workforce, if our IBX employees are unable to access our IBX data centers for any reason, we could experience operational issues at the affected site. Pandemics, weather and climate related crises or any other social, political, or economic disruption in the U.S. or abroad could prevent sufficient staffing at our IBX data centers and have a material adverse impact on our operations.

We are currently making significant investments in our back-office information technology systems and processes. Difficulties from or disruptions to these efforts may interrupt our normal operations and adversely affect our business and results of operations.

We have been investing heavily in our back-office information technology systems and processes for a number of years and expect such investment to continue for the foreseeable future in support of our pursuit of global, scalable solutions across all geographies and functions that we operate in. These continuing investments include: 1) ongoing improvements to the customer experience from initial quote to customer billing and our revenue recognition process; 2) integration of recently acquired operations onto our various information technology systems; and 3) implementation of new tools and technologies to either further streamline and automate processes, or to support our compliance with evolving U.S. GAAP. Our finance team is also working on a multi-year project to move the backbone of our finance systems to the cloud. As a result of our continued work on these projects, we may experience difficulties with our systems, management distraction and significant business disruptions. For example, difficulties with our systems may interrupt our ability to accept and deliver customer orders and may adversely impact our overall financial operations, including our accounts payable, accounts receivables, general ledger, fixed assets, revenue recognition, close processes, internal financial controls and our ability to otherwise run and track our business. We may need to expend significant attention, time and resources to correct problems or find alternative sources for performing these functions. All of these changes to our financial systems also create an increased risk of deficiencies in our internal controls over financial reporting until such systems are stabilized. Such significant investments in our back-office systems may take longer to complete and cost more than originally planned. In addition, we may not realize the full benefits we hoped to achieve and there is a risk of an impairment charge if we decide that portions of these projects will not ultimately benefit us or are de-scoped. Finally, the collective impact of these changes to our business has placed significant demands on impacted employees across multiple functions, increasing the risk of errors and control deficiencies in our financial statements, distraction from the effective operation of our business and difficulty in attracting and retaining employees. Any such difficulties or disruptions may adversely affect our business and results of operations.

The level of insurance coverage that we purchase may prove to be inadequate.

We carry liability, property, business interruption and other insurance policies to cover insurable risks to our company. We select the types of insurance, the limits and the deductibles based on our specific risk profile, the cost of the insurance coverage versus its perceived benefit and general industry standards. Our insurance policies contain industry standard exclusions for events such as war and nuclear reaction. We purchase earthquake insurance for certain of our IBX data centers, but for our IBX data centers in high-risk zones, including those in California and Japan, we have elected to self-insure. The earthquake and flood insurance that we do purchase would be subject to high deductibles. Any of the limits of insurance that we purchase, including those for flood or cyber risks, could prove to be inadequate, which could materially and adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If we are unable to implement our evolving organizational structure, or if we are unable to recruit or retain key executives and qualified personnel, our business could be harmed.

In connection with the evolving needs of our customers and our business, we continue to review our organizational architecture and have made, and will continue to make, changes as appropriate. We must also continue to identify, hire, train and retain key personnel who maintain relationships with our customers and who can provide the technical, strategic and marketing skills required for our company's growth. There is a shortage of qualified personnel in these fields, and we compete with other companies for the limited pool of talent.

The failure to recruit and retain necessary key executives and personnel could cause disruption, harm our business and hamper our ability to grow our company.

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The failure to obtain favorable terms when we renew our IBX data center leases, or the failure to renew such leases, could harm our business and results of operations.

While we own certain of our IBX data centers, others are leased under long-term arrangements. These leased IBX data centers have all been subject to significant development by us in order to convert them from, in most cases, vacant buildings or warehouses into IBX data centers. Most of our IBX data center leases have renewal options available to us. However, many of these renewal options provide for the rent to be set at then-prevailing market rates. To the extent that then-prevailing market rates or negotiated rates are higher than present rates, these higher costs may adversely impact our business and results of operations, or we may decide against renewing the lease. There may also be changes in shared operating costs in connection with our leases, which are commonly referred to as common area maintenance expenses. In the event that an IBX data center lease does not have a renewal option, or we fail to exercise a renewal option in a timely fashion and lose our right to renew the lease, we may not be successful in negotiating a renewal of the lease with the landlord. A failure to renew a lease or termination by a landlord of any lease could force us to exit a building prematurely, which could disrupt our business, harm our customer relationships, impact and harm our joint venture relationships, expose us to liability under our customer contracts or joint venture agreements, cause us to take impairment charges and affect our results of operations negatively.

We depend on a number of third parties to provide internet connectivity to our IBX data centers; if connectivity is interrupted or terminated, our results of operations and cash flow could be materially and adversely affected.

The presence of diverse telecommunications carriers' fiber networks in our IBX data centers is critical to our ability to retain and attract new customers. We are not a telecommunications carrier, and as such, we rely on third parties to provide our customers with carrier services. We believe that the availability of carrier capacity will directly affect our ability to achieve our projected results. We rely primarily on revenue opportunities from the telecommunications carriers' customers to encourage them to invest the capital and operating resources required to connect from their data centers to our IBX data centers. Carriers will likely evaluate the revenue opportunity of an IBX data center based on the assumption that the environment will be highly competitive. We cannot provide assurance that each and every carrier will elect to offer its services within our IBX data centers or that once a carrier has decided to provide internet connectivity to our IBX data centers that it will continue to do so for any period of time.

Our new IBX data centers require construction and operation of a sophisticated redundant fiber network. The construction required to connect multiple carrier facilities to our IBX data centers is complex and involves factors outside of our control, including regulatory processes and the availability of construction resources. Any hardware or fiber failures on this network may result in significant loss of connectivity to our new IBX data center expansions. This could affect our ability to attract new customers to these IBX data centers or retain existing customers.

To date, the network neutrality of our IBX data centers and the variety of networks available to our customers has often been a competitive advantage for us. In certain of our markets, the limited number of carriers available reduces that advantage. As a result, we may need to adapt our key revenue-generating offerings and pricing to be competitive in those markets.

If the establishment of highly diverse internet connectivity to our IBX data centers does not occur, is materially delayed or is discontinued, or is subject to failure, our results of operations and financial condition will be adversely affected.

The use of high-power density equipment may limit our ability to fully utilize our older IBX data centers.

Server technologies continue to evolve and in some instances these changes can result in customers increasing their use of high-power density equipment in our IBX data centers which can increase the demand for power on a per cabinet basis. Additionally, the workloads related to new and evolving technologies such as artificial intelligence will increase the demand for high density computing power. Because many of our IBX data centers were built a number of years ago, the current demand for power may exceed the designed electrical capacity in these IBX data centers. As power, not space, is a limiting factor in many of our IBX data centers, our ability to fully utilize those IBX data centers may be impacted. The ability to increase the power capacity of an IBX data center, should we decide to, is dependent on several factors including, but not limited to, the local utility's ability to provide additional

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power; the length of time required to provide such power; and/or whether it is feasible to upgrade the electrical and mechanical infrastructure of an IBX data center to deliver additional power and cooling to customers. Although we are currently designing and building to a higher power specification than that of many of our older IBX data centers, and are considering redevelopment of certain sites where appropriate, there is a risk that demand could continue to increase, or our redevelopment may not be successful, and our IBX data centers could become underutilized sooner than expected.

Risks Related to our Offerings and Customers

Our offerings have a long sales cycle that may harm our revenue and results of operations.

A customer's decision to purchase our offerings typically involves a significant commitment of resources. In addition, some customers will be reluctant to commit to locating in our IBX data centers until they are confident that the IBX data center has adequate carrier connections. As a result, we have a long sales cycle. Furthermore, we may devote significant time and resources to pursuing a particular sale or customer that does not result in revenues.

Instability in the markets and the current macroeconomic environment could also increase delays in our sales cycle. Delays due to the length of our sales cycle may materially and adversely affect our revenues and results of operations, which could harm our ability to meet our forecasts and cause volatility in our stock price.

We may not be able to compete successfully against current and future competitors.

The global multi-tenant data center market is highly fragmented. It is estimated that we are one of more than 2,200 companies that provide these offerings around the world. We compete with these firms which vary in terms of their data center offerings and the geographies in which they operate. We must continue to evolve our product strategy and be able to differentiate our IBX data centers and product offerings from those of our competitors.

Some of our competitors may adopt aggressive pricing policies, especially if they are not highly leveraged or have lower return thresholds than we do. As a result, we may suffer from pricing pressure that would adversely affect our ability to generate revenues. Some of these competitors may also provide our target customers with additional benefits, including bundled communication services or cloud services, and may do so in a manner that is more attractive to our potential customers than obtaining space in our IBX data centers. Similarly, with growing acceptance of cloud-based technologies, we are at risk of losing customers that may decide to fully leverage cloud infrastructure offerings instead of managing their own. Competitors could also operate more successfully or form alliances to acquire significant market share. Regional competitors may also consolidate to become a global competitor. Consolidation of our customers and/or our competitors may present a risk to our business model and have a negative impact on our revenues.

Failure to compete successfully may materially adversely affect our financial condition, cash flows and results of operations.

If we cannot continue to develop, acquire, market and provide new offerings or enhancements to existing offerings that meet customer requirements and differentiate us from our competitors, our results of operations could suffer.

As our customers evolve their IT strategies, we must remain flexible and evolve along with new technologies and industry and market shifts. The process of developing and acquiring new offerings and enhancing existing offerings is complex. If we fail to anticipate customers’ evolving needs and expectations or do not adapt to technological and IT trends, our results of operations could suffer. Ineffective planning and execution in our cloud, artificial intelligence and product development strategies may cause difficulty in sustaining our competitive advantages. Additionally, any delay in the development, acquisition, marketing or launch of a new offering could result in customer dissatisfaction or attrition. If we cannot continue adapting our products, or if our competitors can adapt their products more quickly than us, our business could be harmed.

In order to adapt effectively, we sometimes must make long-term investments, develop, acquire or obtain certain intellectual property and commit significant resources before knowing whether our predictions will accurately reflect customer demand for the new offerings.

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We are currently making significant investments of resources in expanding our digital services portfolio. In 2020, we acquired Packet Host, Inc. ("Packet"), a bare metal automation company to facilitate a new “as-a-service” product offering for us. “As-a-service” solutions are a relatively new market area for us which can bring challenges and could harm our business if not executed in the time or manner that we expect. These solutions may also require additional capital, may have lower margins and customers can more easily churn as compared to our data center offerings, thus adversely impacting our results. These offerings also introduce us to different competition and faster development cycles as compared to our data center business. If we cannot develop or partner to quickly and efficiently meet market demands, we may also see adverse results. We expect to continue to consider other new product offerings for our customers, including multi-cloud networking and cloud-adjacent storage. While we believe these product offering and others we may implement in the future will be desirable to our customers and will complement our other offerings on Platform Equinix, we cannot guarantee the success of this product or any other new product offering.

We have also invested in joint ventures in order to develop capacity to serve the large footprint needs of a targeted set of hyperscale customers by leveraging existing capacity and dedicated hyperscale builds. We believe these hyperscale customers will also play a large role in the growth of the market for artificial intelligence. We have announced our intention to seek additional joint ventures for certain of our hyperscale builds. There can be no assurances that our joint ventures will be successful or that we find appropriate partners, or that we will be able to successfully meet the needs of these customers through our hyperscale offerings.

Failure to successfully execute on our product strategy or hyperscale strategy could materially adversely affect our financial condition, cash flows and results of operations.

We have government customers, which subjects us to risks including early termination, audits, investigations, sanctions and penalties.

We derive revenues from contracts with the U.S. government, state and local governments and foreign governments. Some of these customers may terminate all or part of their contracts at any time, without cause. There is increased pressure for governments and their agencies, both domestically and internationally, to reduce spending. Some of our federal government contracts are subject to the approval of appropriations being made by the U.S. Congress to fund the expenditures under these contracts. Similarly, some of our contracts at the state and local levels are subject to government funding authorizations.

Government contracts often have unique terms and conditions, such as most favored customer obligations, and are generally subject to audits and investigations which could result in various civil and criminal penalties and administrative sanctions, including termination of contracts, refund of a portion of fees received, forfeiture of profits, suspension of payments, fines and suspensions or debarment from future government business.

Because we depend on the development and growth of a balanced customer base, including key magnet customers, failure to attract, grow and retain this base of customers could harm our business and results of operations.

Our ability to maximize revenues depends on our ability to develop and grow a balanced customer base, consisting of a variety of companies, including enterprises, cloud, digital content and financial companies, and network service providers. We consider certain of these customers to be key magnets in that they draw in other customers. The more balanced the customer base within each IBX data center, the better we will be able to generate significant interconnection revenues, which in turn increases our overall revenues. Our ability to attract customers to our IBX data centers will depend on a variety of factors, including the presence of multiple carriers, the mix of our offerings, the overall mix of customers, the presence of key customers attracting business through vertical market ecosystems, the IBX data center's operating reliability and security and our ability to effectively market our offerings. However, some of our customers may face competitive pressures and may ultimately not be successful or may be consolidated through merger or acquisition. If these customers do not continue to use our IBX data centers it may be disruptive to our business. If customers combine businesses, they may require less colocation space, which could lead to churn in our customer base. Finally, any uncertain global economic climate, including the one we are currently experiencing, could harm our ability to attract and retain customers if customers slow spending, or delay decision-making on our offerings, or if customers begin to have difficulty paying us or seek bankruptcy protection and we experience increased churn in our customer base. Any of these factors may hinder

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the development, growth and retention of a balanced customer base and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Risks Related to our Financial Results

Our results of operations may fluctuate.

We have experienced fluctuations in our results of operations on a quarterly and annual basis. The fluctuations in our results of operations may cause the market price of our common stock to be volatile. We may experience significant fluctuations in our results of operations in the foreseeable future due to a variety of factors, many of which are listed in this Risk Factors section. Additional factors could include, but are not limited to:

•the timing and magnitude of depreciation and interest expense or other expenses related to the acquisition, purchase or construction of additional IBX data centers or the upgrade of existing IBX data centers;

•demand for space, power and solutions at our IBX data centers;

•the availability of power and the associated cost of procuring the power;

•changes in general economic conditions, such as those stemming from pandemics or other economic downturns, or specific market conditions in the telecommunications and internet industries, any of which could have a material impact on us or on our customer base;

•additions and changes in product offerings and our ability to ramp up and integrate new products within the time period we have forecasted;

•restructuring charges or reversals of restructuring charges, which may be necessary due to revised sublease assumptions, changes in strategy or otherwise;

•the financial condition and credit risk of our customers;

•the provision of customer discounts and credits;

•the mix of current and proposed products and offerings and the gross margins associated with our products and offerings;

•increasing repair and maintenance expenses in connection with aging IBX data centers;

•lack of available capacity in our existing IBX data centers to generate new revenue or delays in opening new or acquired IBX data centers that delay our ability to generate new revenue in markets which have otherwise reached capacity;

•changes in employee stock-based compensation;

•changes in our tax planning strategies or failure to realize anticipated benefits from such strategies;

•changes in income tax benefit or expense; and

•changes in or new GAAP as periodically released by the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB").

Any of the foregoing factors, or other factors discussed elsewhere in this report, could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Although we have experienced growth in revenues in recent quarters, this growth rate is not necessarily indicative of future results of operations. It is possible that we may not be able to generate net income on a quarterly or annual basis in the future. In addition, a relatively large portion of our expenses are fixed in the short-term, particularly with respect to lease and personnel expenses, depreciation and amortization and interest expenses. Therefore, our results of operations are particularly sensitive to fluctuations in revenues. As such, comparisons to prior reporting periods should not be relied upon as indications of our future performance. In addition, our results of operations in one or more future quarters may fail to meet the expectations of securities analysts or investors.

We may incur goodwill and other intangible asset impairment charges, or impairment charges to our property, plant and equipment, which could result in a significant reduction to our earnings.

In accordance with U.S. GAAP, we are required to assess our goodwill and other intangible assets annually, or more frequently whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate potential impairment, such as changing market conditions or any changes in key assumptions. If the testing performed indicates that an asset may not be recoverable, we are required to record a non-cash impairment charge for the difference between the carrying value

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of the goodwill or other intangible assets and the implied fair value of the goodwill or other intangible assets in the period the determination is made.

We also periodically monitor the remaining net book values of our property, plant and equipment, including at the individual IBX data center level. Although each individual IBX data center is currently performing in accordance with our expectations, the possibility that one or more IBX data centers could begin to under-perform relative to our expectations is possible and may also result in non-cash impairment charges.

These charges could be significant, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations or financial condition.

We have incurred substantial losses in the past and may incur additional losses in the future.

As of December 31, 2023, our retained earnings were $3.9 billion. We are currently investing heavily in our future growth through the build out of multiple additional IBX data centers, expansions of IBX data centers and acquisitions of complementary businesses. As a result, we will incur higher depreciation and other operating expenses, as well as transaction costs and interest expense, that may negatively impact our ability to sustain profitability in future periods unless and until these new IBX data centers generate enough revenue to exceed their operating costs and cover the additional overhead needed to scale our business for this anticipated growth. The current global financial uncertainty may also impact our ability to sustain profitability if we cannot generate sufficient revenue to offset the increased costs of our recently opened IBX data centers or IBX data centers currently under construction. In addition, costs associated with the acquisition and integration of any acquired companies, as well as the additional interest expense associated with debt financing, we have undertaken to fund our growth initiatives, may also negatively impact our ability to sustain profitability. Finally, given the competitive and evolving nature of the industry in which we operate, we may not be able to sustain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis.

Risks Related to Our Expansion Plans

Our construction of new IBX data centers, IBX data center expansions or IBX data center redevelopment could involve significant risks to our business.

In order to sustain our growth in certain of our existing and new markets, we may have to expand an existing data center, lease a new facility or acquire suitable land, with or without structures, to build new IBX data centers from the ground up. Expansions or new builds are currently underway, or being contemplated, in new and existing markets. These construction projects expose us to many risks which could have an adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition. The current global supply chain and inflation issues have exacerbated many of these construction risks and created additional risks for our business. Some of the risks associated with construction projects include:

•construction delays;

•power and power grid constraints;

•lack of availability and delays for data center equipment, including items such as generators and switchgear;

•unexpected budget changes;

•increased prices for and delays in obtaining building supplies, raw materials and data center equipment;

•labor availability, labor disputes and work stoppages with contractors, subcontractors and other third parties;

•unanticipated environmental issues and geological problems;

•delays related to permitting and approvals to open from public agencies and utility companies;

•unexpected lack of power access;

•delays in site readiness leading to our failure to meet commitments made to customers planning to expand into a new build; and

•unanticipated customer requirements that would necessitate alternative data center design, making our sites less desirable or leading to increased costs in order to make necessary modifications or retrofits.

We are currently experiencing rising construction costs which reflect the increase in cost of labor and raw materials, supply chain and logistic challenges, and high demand in our sector. While we have invested in creating a reserve of materials to mitigate supply chain issues and inflation, it may not be sufficient and ongoing delays,

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difficulty finding replacement products and continued high inflation could affect our business and growth and could have a material effect on our business. Additional or unexpected disruptions to our supply chain, including in the event of any sustained regional escalation of the current conflict in the Middle East in the area around the Red Sea or more broadly, or inflationary pressures could significantly affect the cost of our planned expansion projects and interfere with our ability to meet commitments to customers who have contracted for space in new IBX data centers under construction.

Construction projects are dependent on permitting from public agencies and utility companies. Any delay in permitting could affect our growth. We are currently experiencing permitting delays in most metros due to reduced production from labor availability. While we don't currently anticipate any material long-term negative impact to our business because of these construction delays, these types of delays and stoppages related to permitting from public agencies and utility companies could worsen and have an adverse effect on our bookings, revenue or growth.

Additionally, all construction related projects require us to carefully select and rely on the experience of one or more designers, general contractors, and associated subcontractors during the design and construction process. Should a designer, general contractor, significant subcontractor or key supplier experience financial problems or other problems during the design or construction process, we could experience significant delays, increased costs to complete the project and/or other negative impacts to our expected returns.

Site selection is also a critical factor in our expansion plans. There may not be suitable properties available in our markets with the necessary combination of high-power capacity and fiber connectivity, or selection may be limited. We expect that we will continue to experience limited availability of power and grid constraints in many markets as well as shortages of associated equipment because of the current high demands and finite nature of these resources. These shortages could result in site selection challenges, construction delays or increased costs. Thus, while we may prefer to locate new IBX data centers adjacent to our existing locations, it may not always be possible. In the event we decide to build new IBX data centers separate from our existing IBX data centers, we may provide metro connect solutions to connect these two IBX data centers. Should these solutions not provide the necessary reliability to sustain connection, or if they do not meet the needs of our customers, this could result in lower interconnection revenue and lower margins and could have a negative impact on customer retention over time.

Acquisitions present many risks, and we may not realize the financial or strategic goals that were contemplated at the time of any transaction.

Over the last several years, we have completed numerous acquisitions, including most recently that of five data centers in Peru and Chile from Entel in 2022, MainOne in West Africa in 2022, and GPX Global Systems, Inc.'s India operations in 2021. We expect to make additional acquisitions in the future, which may include (i) acquisitions of businesses, products, solutions or technologies that we believe to be complementary, (ii) acquisitions of new IBX data centers or real estate for development of new IBX data centers; (iii) acquisitions through investments in local data center operators; or (iv) acquisitions in new markets with higher risk profiles. We may pay for future acquisitions by using our existing cash resources (which may limit other potential uses of our cash), incurring additional debt (which may increase our interest expense, leverage and debt service requirements) and/or issuing shares (which may dilute our existing stockholders and have a negative effect on our earnings per share). Acquisitions expose us to potential risks, including:

•the possible disruption of our ongoing business and diversion of management's attention by acquisition, transition and integration activities, particularly when multiple acquisitions and integrations are occurring at the same time or when we are entering an emerging market with a higher risk profile;

•our potential inability to successfully pursue or realize some or all of the anticipated revenue opportunities associated with an acquisition or investment;

•the possibility that we may not be able to successfully integrate acquired businesses, or businesses in which we invest, or achieve anticipated operating efficiencies or cost savings;

•the possibility that announced acquisitions may not be completed, due to failure to satisfy the conditions to closing as a result of:

•an injunction, law or order that makes unlawful the consummation of the acquisition;

•inaccuracy or breach of the representations and warranties of, or the non-compliance with covenants by, either party;

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•the nonreceipt of closing documents; or

•for other reasons;

•the possibility that there could be a delay in the completion of an acquisition, which could, among other things, result in additional transaction costs, loss of revenue or other adverse effects resulting from such uncertainty;

•the possibility that our projections about the success of an acquisition could be inaccurate and any such inaccuracies could have a material adverse effect on our financial projections;

•the dilution of our existing stockholders as a result of our issuing stock as consideration in a transaction or selling stock in order to fund the transaction;

•the possibility of customer dissatisfaction if we are unable to achieve levels of quality and stability on par with past practices;

•the possibility that we will be unable to retain relationships with key customers, landlords and/or suppliers of the acquired businesses, some of which may terminate their contracts with the acquired business as a result of the acquisition or which may attempt to negotiate changes in their current or future business relationships with us;

•the possibility that we could lose key employees from the acquired businesses;

•the possibility that we may be unable to integrate certain IT systems that do not meet Equinix's standard requirements with respect to security, privacy or any other standard;

•the potential deterioration in our ability to access credit markets due to increased leverage;

•the possibility that our customers may not accept either the existing equipment infrastructure or the "look-and-feel" of a new or different IBX data center;

•the possibility that additional capital expenditures may be required or that transaction expenses associated with acquisitions may be higher than anticipated;

•the possibility that required financing to fund an acquisition may not be available on acceptable terms or at all;

•the possibility that we may be unable to obtain required approvals from governmental authorities under antitrust and competition laws on a timely basis or at all, which could, among other things, delay or prevent us from completing an acquisition, limit our ability to realize the expected financial or strategic benefits of an acquisition or have other adverse effects on our current business and operations;

•the possible loss or reduction in value of acquired businesses;

•the possibility that future acquisitions may present new complexities in deal structure, related complex accounting and coordination with new partners, particularly in light of our desire to maintain our qualification for taxation as a REIT;

•the possibility that we may not be able to prepare and issue our financial statements and other public filings in a timely and accurate manner, and/or maintain an effective control environment, due to the strain on the finance organization when multiple acquisitions and integrations are occurring at the same time;

•the possibility that future acquisitions may trigger property tax reassessments resulting in a substantial increase to our property taxes beyond that which we anticipated;

•the possibility that future acquisitions may be in geographies and regulatory environments to which we are unaccustomed and we may become subject to complex requirements and risks with which we have limited experience;

•the possibility that future acquisitions may appear less attractive due to fluctuations in foreign currency rates;

•the possibility that carriers may find it cost-prohibitive or impractical to bring fiber and networks into a new IBX data center;

•the possibility of litigation or other claims in connection with, or as a result of, an acquisition, or inherited from the acquired company, including claims from terminated employees, customers, former stockholders or other third parties;

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•the possibility that asset divestments may be required in order to obtain regulatory clearance for a transaction;

•the possibility of pre-existing undisclosed liabilities, including, but not limited to, lease or landlord related liability, tax liability, environmental liability or asbestos liability, for which insurance coverage may be insufficient or unavailable, or other issues not discovered in the diligence process;

•the possibility that we receive limited or incorrect information about the acquired business in the diligence process; and

•the possibility that we do not have full visibility into customer agreements and customer termination rights during the diligence process which could expose us to additional liabilities after completing the acquisition.

The occurrence of any of these risks could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition or cash flows. If an acquisition does not proceed or is materially delayed for any reason, the price of our common stock may be adversely impacted, and we will not recognize the anticipated benefits of the acquisition.

We cannot assure that the price of any future acquisitions of IBX data centers or businesses will be similar to prior IBX data center acquisitions and businesses. In fact, we expect costs required to build or render new IBX data centers operational to increase in the future. If our revenue does not keep pace with these potential acquisition and expansion costs, we may not be able to maintain our current or expected margins as we absorb these additional expenses. There is no assurance we would successfully overcome these risks, or any other problems encountered with these acquisitions.

The anticipated benefits of our joint ventures may not be fully realized, or take longer to realize than expected.

We have entered into joint ventures to develop and operate data centers (the “Joint Ventures”). Certain sites that are intended to be utilized in Joint Ventures require investment for development. The success of these Joint Ventures will also depend, in part, on the successful development of the data center sites, and we may not realize all of the anticipated benefits. Such development may be more difficult, time-consuming or costly than expected and could result in increased costs, decreases in the amount of expected revenues and diversion of management's time and energy, which could materially impact our business, financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, if it is determined these sites are no longer desirable for the Joint Ventures, we would need to adapt such sites for other purposes.

We may not realize all of the anticipated benefits from our Joint Ventures. The success of these Joint Ventures will depend, in part, on the successful partnership between Equinix and our Joint Venture partners. Such a partnership is subject to risks as outlined below in our risk factor related to Joint Ventures, and more generally, to the same types of business risks as would impact our IBX data center business. A failure to successfully partner, or a failure to realize our expectations for the Joint Ventures, including any contemplated exit strategy from a Joint Venture, could materially impact our business, financial condition and results of operations. These Joint Ventures could also be negatively impacted by inflation, supply chain issues, an inability to obtain financing on favorable terms or at all, an inability to fill the xScale sites with customers as planned, and development and construction delays, including those we are currently experiencing in many markets globally.

Joint venture investments could expose us to risks and liabilities in connection with the formation of the new joint ventures, the operation of such joint ventures without sole decision-making authority, and our reliance on joint venture partners who may have economic and business interests that are inconsistent with our business interests.

In addition to our current and proposed Joint Ventures, we may co-invest with other third parties through partnerships, joint ventures or other entities in the future. These joint ventures could result in our acquisition of non-controlling interests in, or shared responsibility for, managing the affairs of a property or portfolio of properties, partnership, joint venture or other entity. We may be subject to additional risks, including:

•we may not have the right to exercise sole decision-making authority regarding the properties, partnership, joint venture or other entity;

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•if our partners become bankrupt or fail to fund their share of required capital contributions, we may choose to or be required to contribute such capital;

•our partners may have economic, tax or other business interests or goals which are inconsistent with our business interests or goals, and may be in a position to take actions contrary to our policies or objectives;

•our joint venture partners may take actions that are not within our control, which could require us to dispose of the joint venture asset, transfer it to a taxable REIT subsidiary ("TRS") in order to maintain our qualification for taxation as a REIT, or purchase the partner's interests or assets at an above-market price;

•our joint venture partners may take actions unrelated to our business agreement but which reflect poorly on us because of our joint venture relationship;

•disputes between us and our partners may result in litigation or arbitration that would increase our expenses and prevent our management from focusing their time and effort on our day-to-day business;

•we may in certain circumstances be liable for the actions of our third-party partners or guarantee all or a portion of the joint venture's liabilities, which may require us to pay an amount greater than its investment in the joint venture;

•we may need to change the structure of an established joint venture or create new complex structures to meet our business needs or the needs of our partners which could prove challenging; and

•a joint venture partner's decision to exit the joint venture may not be at an opportune time for us or in our business interests.

Each of these factors may result in returns on these investments being less than we expect or in losses, and our financial and results of operations may be adversely affected.

If we cannot effectively manage our international operations and successfully implement our international expansion plans, our business and results of operations would be adversely impacted.

For the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, we recognized approximately 63%, 61% and 61%, respectively, of our revenues outside the U.S. We currently operate outside of the U.S. in Canada, Mexico, South America, the Asia-Pacific region and, the EMEA region.

In addition, we are currently undergoing expansions or evaluating expansion opportunities outside of the U.S. Undertaking and managing expansions in foreign jurisdictions may present unanticipated challenges to us.

Our international operations are generally subject to a number of additional risks, including:

•the costs of customizing IBX data centers for foreign countries;

•protectionist laws and business practices favoring local competition;

•greater difficulty or delay in accounts receivable collection;

•difficulties in staffing and managing foreign operations, including negotiating with foreign labor unions or workers' councils;

•difficulties in managing across cultures and in foreign languages;

•political and economic instability;

•fluctuations in currency exchange rates;

•difficulties in repatriating funds from certain countries;

•our ability to obtain, transfer or maintain licenses required by governmental entities with respect to our business;

•unexpected changes in regulatory, tax and political environments;

•difficulties in procuring power;

•trade wars;

•changes in the government and public administration in emerging markets that may impact the stability of foreign investment policies;

•our ability to secure and maintain the necessary physical and telecommunications infrastructure;

•compliance with anti-bribery and corruption laws;

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•compliance with economic and trade sanctions enforced by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of Treasury, the Bureau of Industry and Security of the US Department of Commerce and other enforcement agencies in other jurisdictions around the world including those related to the Russian and Ukrainian war;

•compliance with changing laws, policies and requirements related to sustainability;

•increasing scrutiny on the operational resilience of data centers, especially in countries where data centers are designated as critical national infrastructure and/or essential ICT service providers;

•increasing resistance to data center presence and expansion by local communities;

•compliance with evolving cybersecurity laws including reporting requirements; and

•compliance with evolving governmental regulation.

Further, if we cannot effectively manage the challenges associated with our international operations and expansion plans, we could experience a delay in our expansion projects or a failure to grow. Expansion challenges and international operations failures could also materially damage our reputation, our brand, our business and results of operations. Our success depends, in part, on our ability to anticipate and address these risks and manage these difficulties.

We continue to invest in our expansion efforts, but may not have sufficient customer demand in the future to realize expected returns on these investments.

We are considering the acquisition or lease of additional properties and the construction of new IBX data centers beyond those expansion projects already announced. We will be required to commit substantial operational and financial resources to these IBX data centers, generally 12 to 18 months in advance of securing customer contracts, and we may not have sufficient customer demand in those markets to support these IBX data centers once they are built. In addition, unanticipated technological changes could affect customer requirements for data centers, and we may not have built such requirements into our new IBX data centers. Either of these contingencies, if they were to occur, could make it difficult for us to realize expected or reasonable returns on these investments.

Risks Related to Our Capital Needs and Capital Strategy

Our substantial debt could adversely affect our cash flows and limit our flexibility to raise additional capital.

We have a significant amount of debt and may need to incur additional debt to support our growth. Additional debt may also be incurred to fund future acquisitions, any future special distributions, regular distributions or the other cash outlays associated with maintaining our qualification for taxation as a REIT. As of December 31, 2023, our total indebtedness (gross of debt issuance cost and debt discount) was approximately $16.1 billion, our stockholders' equity was $12.5 billion and our cash and cash equivalents totaled $2.1 billion. In addition, as of December 31, 2023, we had approximately $3.9 billion of additional liquidity available to us from our $4.0 billion revolving credit facility. In addition to our substantial debt, we lease many of our IBX data centers and certain equipment under lease agreements, some of which are accounted for as operating leases. As of December 31, 2023, we recorded operating lease liabilities of $1.5 billion, which represents our obligation to make lease payments under those lease arrangements.

Our substantial amount of debt and related covenants, and our off-balance sheet commitments, could have important consequences. For example, they could:

•require us to dedicate a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to make interest and principal payments on our debt and in respect of other off-balance sheet arrangements, reducing the availability of our cash flow to fund future capital expenditures, working capital, execution of our expansion strategy and other general corporate requirements;

•increase the likelihood of negative outlook from our credit rating agencies, or of a downgrade to our current rating;

•make it more difficult for us to satisfy our obligations under our various debt instruments;

•increase our cost of borrowing and even limit our ability to access additional debt to fund future growth;

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•increase our vulnerability to general adverse economic and industry conditions and adverse changes in governmental regulations;

•limit our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and industry, which may place us at a competitive disadvantage compared with our competitors;

•limit our operating flexibility through covenants with which we must comply;

•limit our ability to borrow additional funds, even when necessary to maintain adequate liquidity, which would also limit our ability to further expand our business; and

•make us more vulnerable to increases in interest rates because of the variable interest rates on some of our borrowings to the extent we have not entirely hedged such variable rate debt.

The occurrence of any of the foregoing factors could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We may also need to refinance a portion of our outstanding debt as it matures. There is a risk that we may not be able to refinance existing debt or that the terms of any refinancing may not be as favorable as the terms of our existing debt. Furthermore, if prevailing interest rates or other factors at the time of refinancing result in higher interest rates upon refinancing, then the interest expense relating to that refinanced indebtedness would increase. These risks could materially adversely affect our financial condition, cash flows and results of operations.

Sales or issuances of shares of our common stock may adversely affect the market price of our common stock.

Future sales or issuances of common stock or other equity related securities may adversely affect the market price of our common stock, including any shares of our common stock issued to finance capital expenditures, finance acquisitions or repay debt. In November 2022 and as amended in October 2023, we established an "at the market" equity offering program (the "2022 ATM Program") in the amount of $1.5 billion under which we may, from time to time, issue and sell shares of our common stock to or through sales agents up to established limits. As of December 31, 2023, we had approximately $469.7 million available for sale under the 2022 ATM Program. We have refreshed our ATM program in the past and expect to refresh our ATM program periodically, which could lead to additional dilution for our stockholders in the future. We may also seek authorization to sell additional shares of common stock through other means which could lead to additional dilution for our stockholders. Please see Note 12 within the Consolidated Financial Statements of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for sales of our common stock under our ATM programs.

If we are not able to generate sufficient operating cash flows or obtain external financing, our ability to fund incremental expansion plans may be limited.

Our capital expenditures, together with ongoing operating expenses, obligations to service our debt and the cash outlays associated with our REIT distribution requirements, are, and will continue to be, a substantial burden on our cash flow and may decrease our cash balances. Additional debt or equity financing may not be available when needed or, if available, may not be available on satisfactory terms. Our inability to obtain additional debt and/or equity financing or to generate sufficient cash from operations may require us to prioritize projects or curtail capital expenditures which could adversely affect our results of operations.

Our derivative transactions expose us to counterparty credit risk.

Our derivative transactions expose us to risk of financial loss if a counterparty fails to perform under a derivative contract. Disruptions in the financial markets could lead to sudden decreases in a counterparty's liquidity, which could make them unable to perform under the terms of their derivative contract and we may not be able to realize the benefit of the derivative contract.

Risks Related to Environmental Laws and Climate Change Impact

Environmental regulations may impose upon us new or unexpected costs.

We are subject to various federal, state and local environmental and health and safety laws and regulations in the United States and at our non-U.S. locations, including those relating to the generation, storage, handling and

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disposal of hazardous substances and wastes. Certain of these laws and regulations also impose joint and several liability, without regard to fault, for investigation and cleanup costs on current and former owners and operators of real property and persons who have disposed of or released hazardous substances into the environment. Our operations involve the use of hazardous substances and other regulated materials such as petroleum fuel for emergency generators, as well as batteries, cleaning solutions, refrigerants and other materials. At some of our locations, hazardous substances or regulated materials are known to be present in soil or groundwater, and there may be additional unknown hazardous substances or regulated materials present at sites that we own, operate or lease. At some of our locations, there are land use restrictions in place relating to earlier environmental cleanups that do not materially limit our use of the sites. To the extent any hazardous substances or any other substance or material must be investigated, cleaned up or removed from our property, we may be responsible under applicable laws, permits or leases for the investigation, removal or cleanup of such substances or materials, the cost of which could be substantial.

We purchase significant amounts of electricity from generating facilities and utility companies. These facilities and utility companies are subject to environmental laws, regulations, permit requirements and policy decisions that could be subject to material change, which could result in increases in our electricity suppliers' compliance costs that may be passed through to us. Regulations promulgated by the U.S. EPA or state agencies, or by regulators in other countries, could limit air emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants, restrict discharges of cooling water, limit the availability of potable water and otherwise impose new operational restraints on power plants that could increase costs of electricity. Regulatory programs intended to promote increased generation of electricity from renewable sources may also increase our costs of procuring electricity. In addition, we are directly subject to environmental, health and safety laws regulating air emissions, storm water management and other environmental matters arising in our business. For example, our emergency generators are subject to state, federal and country-specific regulations governing air pollutants, which could limit the operation of those generators or require the installation of new pollution control technologies. While environmental regulations do not normally impose material costs upon our operations, unexpected events, equipment malfunctions, human error and changes in law or regulations, among other factors, can lead to additional capital requirements, limitations upon our operations and unexpected increased costs.

Regulation of greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions could increase our costs of doing business, for example by increasing the cost of electricity produced by more GHG-intensive means (e.g., generated from fossil fuels), which could require the use of management or reduction of GHG emissions (e.g., carbon dioxide capture), or by imposing taxes or fees upon electricity or GHG emissions. In recent years, there has been interest in the U.S. and in countries where we operate abroad in regulating GHG emissions and otherwise addressing risks related to climate change. For example, in the U.S., new regulations and legislation have been proposed or enacted during the Biden Administration that limit or otherwise seeks to discourage carbon dioxide emissions and the use of fossil fuels. Such regulations and legislation have included or may in the future include measures ranging from direct regulation of GHG emissions to "carbon taxes," and tax incentives to promote the development and use of renewable energy and otherwise lower GHG emissions. Other countries in which we operate may also impose requirements and restrictions on GHG emissions.

Governmental regulations also have the potential to increase our costs of obtaining electricity. Certain U.S. states in which we operate have issued or are considering and may enact environmental regulations that could materially affect our facilities and electricity costs. For example, California limits GHG emissions from new and existing conventional power plants by imposing regulatory caps and by auctioning the rights to emission allowances. Multiple other states have issued regulations (or are considering regulations) to implement carbon cap and trade programs, carbon pricing programs and other mechanisms designed to limit GHG emissions.

To date, regulations aimed at reducing GHG emissions have not had a material adverse effect on our electricity costs, but potential new regulatory requirements and the market-driven nature of some of the programs could have a material adverse effect on electricity costs in the future. Global environmental regulations are expected to continue to change and evolve and may impose upon us new or unexpected costs. Concern about climate change and sustainability in various jurisdictions may result in more stringent laws and regulatory requirements regarding emissions of carbon dioxide or other GHGs. Restrictions on carbon dioxide or other GHG emissions could result in significant increases in operating or capital costs, including higher energy costs generally, and increased costs from carbon taxes, emission cap and trade programs and renewable portfolio standards that are imposed upon our electricity suppliers. These higher energy costs, and the cost of complying across our global platform or of failing to comply with these and any other climate change regulations, may have an adverse effect on our business and our results of operations. The course of future legislation and regulation in the U.S. and abroad remains difficult to

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predict and the potential increased costs associated with national or supra-national GHG regulation and other government policies cannot be estimated at this time.

Our business may be adversely affected by physical risks related to climate change and our response to it.

Severe weather events, such as droughts, wildfires, flooding, heat waves, hurricanes, typhoons and winter storms, pose a threat to our IBX data centers and our customers' IT infrastructure through physical damage to facilities or equipment, power supply disruption, and long-term effects on the cost of electricity. The frequency and intensity of severe weather events are reportedly increasing as part of broader climate changes. Changes in global weather patterns may also pose long-term risks of physical impacts to our business.

We maintain disaster recovery and business continuity plans that would be implemented in the event of severe weather events that interrupt our business or affect our customers' IT infrastructure housed in our IBX data centers. While these plans are designed to allow us to recover from natural disasters or other events that can interrupt our business, we cannot be certain that our plans will work as intended to mitigate the impacts of such disasters or events. Failure to prevent impact to customers from such events could adversely affect our business.

We may fail to achieve our Environmental, Social and Governance ("ESG") and sustainability goals, or may encounter objections to them, either of which may adversely affect public perception of our business and affect our relationship with our customers, our stockholders and/or other stakeholders.

We have prioritized sustainability and ESG objectives, including long term goals of procuring 100% clean and renewable energy coverage and reducing our GHG emissions from our operations and supply chain. We also face pressure from our customers, stockholders and other stakeholders, such as the communities in which we operate, who are increasingly focused on climate change, to prioritize renewable energy procurement, reduce our carbon footprint and promote sustainable practices. To address these goals and concerns, where possible, we plan to continue to scale our renewable energy strategy, seek low-carbon alternatives for traditional fuel sources, use refrigerants that pose fewer risks of environmental impact, and pursue opportunities to improve energy and water efficiency. As a result of these and other initiatives, we intend to make progress towards reducing our environmental impact and global carbon footprint, meet our public climate related commitments, as well as ensuring that our business remains viable in a low-carbon economy.

Pursuing these objectives involves additional costs for conducting our business. For example, developing and acting on ESG initiatives, including collecting, measuring, and reporting information, goals and other metrics can be costly, difficult and time consuming. We have separately undertaken efforts to procure coverage from renewable energy projects in order to support availability of new renewables development. These efforts to support and enhance renewable electricity generation may increase our costs of electricity above those that would be incurred through procurement of conventional electricity from existing sources or through conventional grids. Reducing our carbon footprint may require physical or operational modifications that may be costly. These initiatives could adversely affect our financial position and results of operations.

There is also a risk that our ESG and sustainability objectives will not be successful. It is possible that we may fail to reach our stated environmental goals in a timely manner or that our customers, stockholders or members of our communities might not be satisfied with our sustainability efforts or the speed of their adoption. Our customers, shareholders or others may object to our ESG and sustainability objectives or the manner in which we seek to achieve such objectives. A failure to meet our environmental goals, or significant controversy regarding these goals and how we achieve them, could adversely affect public perception of our business, employee morale or customer, stockholder or community support. If we do not meet our customers' or stockholders' expectations regarding those initiatives, or lose support in our communities, our business and/or our share price could be harmed.

There is some indication that ESG and sustainability goals are becoming more controversial, as some governmental entities in the U.S. and certain investor constituencies question the appropriateness of or object to ESG and sustainability initiatives. Some investors may use ESG-related factors to guide their investment strategies and may choose not to invest in us, a factor that would tend to reduce demand for our shares and possibly affect our share price adversely. We also may face potential governmental enforcement actions or private litigation challenging our ESG and sustainability goals, or our disclosure of those goals and our metrics for measuring achievement of them. New or changing regulation or public opinion regarding our ESG and sustainability goals or

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our actions to achieve them may result in adverse effects on our financial performance, reputation or demand for our services and products, or may otherwise result in obligations and liabilities that cannot predicted or estimated at this time.

Risks Related to Certain Regulations and Laws, Including Tax Laws

Geopolitical events contribute to an already complex and evolving regulatory landscape. If we cannot comply with the evolving laws and regulations in the countries in which we operate, we may be subject to litigation and/or sanctions, adverse revenue impacts, increased costs and our business and results of operations could be negatively impacted.

Geopolitical events, such as the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union ("Brexit"), the Hong Kong national security law, the trade war between the U.S. and China, the war between Russia and Ukraine and, most recently, the escalation of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, could have a negative effect on our business domestically and/or internationally. While some time has passed since some of these events first occurred, it remains unpredictable how these events will continue to develop and impact the environment in which we do business.

In addition, many countries and states have increasingly taken a more proactive approach on sustainability through the adoption of regulations that oblige corporations to make disclosures on their corporate sustainability efforts through mandatory ESG reporting and to decarbonize their operations and supply chain. It is possible that compliance with the sustainability-related regulations and directives will require us to re-evaluate and make changes to our current operations and our supply chain and thus increase our cost of doing business in the relevant affected regions or countries. We may incur incremental costs to enhance our internal systems to collect the data needed to meet these regulatory requirements, including attestation standards.

In countries where there are shortages of power, land and water resources, local governments have and/or will be imposing more stringent regulations and requirements to control the growth and development of data centers in their countries. New builds and further expansion of data center operations in such markets are increasingly being evaluated and approvals (where required) may only be granted where a data center operator is not only able to demonstrate that it is efficient in its use of energy and water but also that its operations have and/or will bring positive and significant environmental, economic and social impact to the country and the local community.

Digitalization has been accelerated in many countries as a direct consequence of the pandemic and regulators are increasingly aware and recognizing the importance of data centers in ensuring the availability, resiliency, security and stability of digitalized critical services such as national security, healthcare and financial and banking services. Regulations such as the US Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 (“CIRCIA 2022”), the SEC Cybersecurity Disclosure Rule, the EU Network and Information Security Directive No.2 (“NISD2”), the EU Digital Operational Resilience Act, and Australia’s Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 make it mandatory for Equinix to comply with more stringent requirements related to cybersecurity, controls on data storage and cross border data transfer and operational resilience, more so, in countries where our entities and/or IBXs are designated as critical information or critical national infrastructure. Regulatory compliance may lead to additional costs and impact returns on investments in the relevant jurisdictions.

With respect to the current trade war between the U.S. and China, we have several customers in China named in restrictive executive orders by the previous U.S. administration that are currently covered by a freeze issued by the current U.S. administration or currently enjoined from enforcement subject to pending litigation. If Equinix is required to cease business with these companies, or additional companies in the future, our revenues could be adversely affected.

Additionally, laws and regulations related to economic sanctions, export controls, anti-bribery and anti-corruption, and other international activities may restrict or limit our ability to engage in transactions or dealings with certain counterparties, in or with certain countries or territories, or in certain activities. We cannot guarantee compliance with all such laws and regulations, and failure to comply with such laws and regulations could expose us to fines, penalties, or costly and expensive investigations.

Violations of any of applicable domestic or international laws and regulations could result in fines, criminal sanctions against us, our officers or our employees, and prohibitions on the conduct of our business. Any such

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violations could include prohibitions on our ability to provide our offerings in one or more countries, could delay or prevent potential acquisitions, and could also materially damage our reputation, our brand, our international expansion efforts, our ability to attract and retain employees, our business and results of operations.

Government regulation related to our business or failure to comply with laws and regulations may adversely affect our business.

Various laws and governmental regulations, both in the U.S. and abroad, governing internet-related services, related communications services and information technologies remain largely unsettled, even in areas where there has been some legislative action. For example, the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") recently overturned network neutrality rules, which may result in material changes in the regulations and contribution regime affecting us and our customers. Furthermore, the U.S. Congress and state legislatures are reviewing and considering changes to the new FCC rules making the future of network neutrality uncertain. Changes to these laws and regulations could have a material adverse effect on us and our customers. We expect there may also be forthcoming regulation in areas of regulating the responsible use of artificial intelligence, such as the proposed EU Artificial Intelligence Act and the introduction of heightened measures to be adopted with respect to cybersecurity, data privacy, sustainability, taxation and data security, any of which could impact us and our customers.

We remain focused on whether and how existing and changing laws, such as those governing intellectual property, privacy, libel, telecommunications services, data flows/data localization, carbon emissions impact, competition and antitrust, and taxation apply to our business and those which might have a material effect on our customers’ decisions to purchase our solutions. Substantial resources may be required to comply with regulations or bring any non-compliant business practices into compliance with such regulations. In addition, the continuing development of the market for online commerce and the displacement of traditional telephony service by the internet and related communications services may prompt an increased call for more stringent consumer protection laws or other regulation both in the U.S. and abroad that may impose additional burdens on companies conducting business online and their service providers.

Our business was designated "critical infrastructure" or "essential services" which allowed our data centers to remain open in many jurisdictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Any regulations restricting our ability to operate our business for any reason could have a material adverse effect on our business. Additionally, these "essential services" and "critical infrastructure" designations could lead countries or local regulators to impose additional regulations on the data center industry in order to have better visibility and control over our industry for future events and crises.

We strive to comply with all laws and regulations that apply to our business. However, as these laws evolve, they can be subject to varying interpretations and regulatory discretion. To the extent a regulator or court disagrees with our interpretation of these laws and determines that our practices are not in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, we could be subject to civil and criminal penalties that could adversely affect our business operations. The adoption, or modification of laws or regulations relating to the internet and our business, or interpretations of existing laws, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Changes in U.S. or foreign tax laws, regulations, or interpretations thereof, including changes to tax rates, may adversely affect our financial statements and cash taxes.

We are a U.S. company with global subsidiaries and are subject to income and other taxes in the U.S. (although currently limited due to our taxation as a REIT) and many foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in determining our worldwide provision for income and other taxes. Although we believe that we have adequately assessed and accounted for our potential tax liabilities, and that our tax estimates are reasonable, there can be no certainty that additional taxes will not be due upon audit of our tax returns or as a result of changes to the tax laws and interpretations thereof. For example, we are currently undergoing audits in a number of jurisdictions where we operate. The final results of these audits are uncertain and may not be resolved in our favor.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development ("OECD") is an international association made up of over 30 countries including the U.S. The OECD has proposed and made numerous changes to long-standing tax principles, which, if adopted by the member countries, could have a materially adverse effect on our tax liabilities. For example, it has proposed a framework to implement a global minimum tax of 15% for businesses with

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global revenues and profits above certain thresholds (referred to as Pillar Two). The framework includes a mechanism empowering foreign jurisdictions to levy a top-up tax on our profits in the U.S. Certain aspects of Pillar Two became effective January 1, 2024, and the rest of the new tax regime will become effective January 1, 2025. While it is uncertain whether the U.S. will enact legislation to adopt Pillar Two, certain countries in which we operate have partially adopted Pillar Two, and other countries are in the process of introducing legislation to adopt the new tax regime. We are continuing to evaluate the impacts of the development in the jurisdictions in which we operate.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to increased spending by many governments in the past years. Because of this, there could be pressure to increase taxes in the future to pay back debts and generate revenues. The nature and timing of any future changes to each jurisdiction's tax laws and the impact on our future tax liabilities cannot be predicted with any accuracy, but could materially and adversely impact our results of operations and financial position or cash flows.

Our business could be adversely affected if we are unable to maintain our complex global legal entity structure.

We maintain a complex global organizational structure, containing numerous legal entities of varied types and serving various purposes, in each country in which we operate. For example, to maintain our qualification for taxation as a REIT for U.S. federal income tax purposes, we use TRSs and qualified REIT subsidiaries ("QRSs") in order to segregate our income between net income from real estate and net income from other non-real estate activities. This results in significantly more entities than we might otherwise utilize if we were not having to maintain our qualification for taxation as a REIT in the U.S.

Additionally, we maintain certain other region-specific organizational structures for various tax, legal and other business purposes. The organization, maintenance and reporting requirements for our entity structure are complex and require coordination amongst many teams within Equinix and the use of outside service providers. While we use automation tools and software where possible to manage this process, a meaningful amount of work continues to be manual. We believe we have adequate controls in place to manage these complex structures, but if our controls fail, there could be significant legal and tax implications to our business and our operations including but not limited to material tax and legal liabilities.

Risks Related to Our REIT Status in the U.S.

We may not remain qualified for taxation as a REIT.

We elected to be taxed as a REIT for U.S. federal income tax purposes beginning with our 2015 taxable year. We believe that our organization and method of operation comply with the rules and regulations promulgated under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the "Code"), such that we will continue to qualify for taxation as a REIT. However, we cannot assure you that we have qualified for taxation as a REIT or that we will remain so qualified. Qualification for taxation as a REIT involves the application of highly technical and complex provisions of the Code to our operations as well as various factual determinations concerning matters and circumstances not entirely within our control. There are limited judicial or administrative interpretations of applicable REIT provisions of the Code.

If, in any taxable year, we fail to remain qualified for taxation as a REIT and are not entitled to relief under the Code:

•we will not be allowed a deduction for distributions to stockholders in computing our taxable income;

•we will be subject to U.S. federal and state income tax on our taxable income at regular corporate income tax rates; and

•we would not be eligible to elect REIT status again until the fifth taxable year that begins after the first year for which we failed to qualify for taxation as a REIT.

Any such corporate tax liability could be substantial and would reduce the amount of cash available for other purposes. If we fail to remain qualified for taxation as a REIT, we may need to borrow additional funds or liquidate some investments to pay any additional tax liability. Accordingly, funds available for investment and distributions to stockholders could be reduced.

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As a REIT, failure to make required distributions would subject us to federal corporate income tax.

We paid quarterly distributions in each quarter of 2023 and have declared a quarterly distribution for the fourth quarter of 2023 to be paid on March 20, 2024. The amount, timing and form of any future distributions will be determined, and will be subject to adjustment, by our Board of Directors. To remain qualified for taxation as a REIT, we are generally required to distribute at least 90% of our REIT taxable income (determined without regard to the dividends paid deduction and excluding net capital gain) each year, or in limited circumstances, the following year, to our stockholders. Generally, we expect to distribute all or substantially all of our REIT taxable income. If our cash available for distribution falls short of our estimates, we may be unable to maintain distributions that approximate our REIT taxable income and may fail to remain qualified for taxation as a REIT. In addition, our cash flows from operations may be insufficient to fund required distributions as a result of differences in timing between the actual receipt of income and the payment of expenses and the recognition of income and expenses for federal income tax purposes, or the effect of nondeductible expenditures, such as capital expenditures, payments of compensation for which Section 162(m) of the Code denies a deduction, interest expense deductions limited by Section 163(j) of the Code, the creation of reserves or required debt service or amortization payments.

To the extent that we satisfy the 90% distribution requirement but distribute less than 100% of our REIT taxable income, we will be subject to federal corporate income tax on our undistributed taxable income. In addition, we will be subject to a 4% nondeductible excise tax on our undistributed taxable income if the actual amount that we distribute to our stockholders for a calendar year is less than the minimum amount specified under the Code.

Complying with REIT requirements may limit our flexibility or cause us to forgo otherwise attractive opportunities.

To remain qualified for taxation as a REIT for U.S. federal income tax purposes, we must satisfy tests concerning, among other things, the sources of our income, the nature and diversification of our assets and the amounts we distribute to our stockholders. For example, under the Code, no more than 20% of the value of the assets of a REIT may be represented by securities of one or more TRSs. Similar rules apply to other nonqualifying assets. These limitations may affect our ability to make large investments in other non-REIT qualifying operations or assets. In addition, in order to maintain our qualification for taxation as a REIT, we must distribute at least 90% of our REIT taxable income, determined without regard to the dividends paid deduction and excluding any net capital gains. Even if we maintain our qualification for taxation as a REIT, we will be subject to U.S. federal income tax at regular corporate income tax rates for our undistributed REIT taxable income, as well as U.S. federal income tax at regular corporate income tax rates for income recognized by our TRSs; we also pay taxes in the foreign jurisdictions in which our international assets and operations are held and conducted regardless of our qualification for taxation as a REIT. Because of these distribution requirements, we will likely not be able to fund future capital needs and investments from operating cash flow. As such, compliance with REIT tests may hinder our ability to make certain attractive investments, including the purchase of significant nonqualifying assets and the material expansion of non-real estate activities.

Our use of TRSs, including for certain of our international operations, may cause us to fail to remain qualified for taxation as a REIT in the U.S.

Our operations utilize TRSs to facilitate our qualification for taxation as a REIT. The net income of our TRSs is not included in our REIT taxable income unless it is distributed by an applicable TRS, and income that is not included in our REIT taxable income generally is not subject to the REIT income distribution requirement. Our ability to receive distributions from our TRSs is limited by the rules with which we must comply to maintain our qualification for taxation as a REIT. In particular, at least 75% of our gross income for each taxable year as a REIT must be derived from real estate. Consequently, no more than 25% of our gross income may consist of dividend income from our TRSs and other nonqualifying types of income. Thus, our ability to receive distributions from our TRSs may be limited and may impact our ability to fund distributions to our stockholders using cash flows from our TRSs.

Further, there may be limitations on our ability to accumulate earnings in our TRSs and the accumulation or reinvestment of significant earnings in our TRSs could result in adverse tax treatment. In particular, if the accumulation of cash in our TRSs causes (1) the fair market value of our securities in our TRSs to exceed 20% of the fair market value of our assets or (2) the fair market value of our securities in our TRSs and other nonqualifying assets to exceed 25% of the fair market value of our assets, then we will fail to remain qualified for taxation as a REIT. Further, a substantial portion of our TRSs are overseas, and a material change in foreign currency rates could also negatively impact our ability to remain qualified for taxation as a REIT.

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The Code imposes limitations on the ability of our TRSs to utilize specified income tax deductions, including limits on the use of net operating losses and limits on the deductibility of interest expense.

Even if we remain qualified for taxation as a REIT, some of our business activities are subject to corporate level income tax and foreign taxes, which will continue to reduce our cash flows, and we will have potential deferred and contingent tax liabilities.

Even if we remain qualified for taxation as a REIT, we may be subject to some federal, state, local and foreign taxes, including taxes on any undistributed income, and state, local or foreign income, franchise, property and transfer taxes. In addition, we could in certain circumstances be required to pay an excise or penalty tax, which could be significant in amount, in respect of dealer property income or in order to utilize one or more relief provisions under the Code to maintain our qualification for taxation as a REIT.

A portion of our business is conducted through wholly owned TRSs because certain of our business activities could generate nonqualifying REIT income as currently structured and operated. The income of our U.S. TRSs will continue to be subject to federal and state corporate income taxes. In addition, our international assets and operations will continue to be subject to taxation in the foreign jurisdictions where those assets are held or those operations are conducted. Any of these taxes would decrease our earnings and our available cash.

We will also be subject to a U.S. federal corporate level income tax at the highest regular corporate income tax rate on gain recognized from a sale of a REIT asset where our basis in the asset is determined by reference to the basis of the asset in the hands of a C corporation (such as an asset that we or our QRSs hold following the liquidation or other conversion of a former TRS). This tax is generally applicable to any disposition of such an asset during the five-year period after the date we first owned the asset as a REIT asset, to the extent of the built-in-gain based on the fair market value of such asset on the date we first held the asset as a REIT asset.

Our certificate of incorporation contains restrictions on the ownership and transfer of our stock, though they may not be successful in preserving our qualification for taxation as a REIT.

In order for us to remain qualified for taxation as a REIT, no more than 50% of the value of outstanding shares of our stock may be owned, beneficially or constructively, by five or fewer individuals at any time during the last half of each taxable year. In addition, rents from "affiliated tenants" will not qualify as qualifying REIT income if we own 10% or more by vote or value of the customer, whether directly or after application of attribution rules under the Code. Subject to certain exceptions, our certificate of incorporation prohibits any stockholder from owning, beneficially or constructively, more than (i) 9.8% in value of the outstanding shares of all classes or series of our capital stock or (ii) 9.8% in value or number, whichever is more restrictive, of the outstanding shares of any class or series of our capital stock. We refer to these restrictions collectively as the "ownership limits" and we included them in our certificate of incorporation to facilitate our compliance with REIT tax rules. The constructive ownership rules under the Code are complex and may cause the outstanding stock owned by a group of related individuals or entities to be deemed to be constructively owned by one individual or entity. As a result, the acquisition of less than 9.8% of our outstanding common stock (or the outstanding shares of any class or series of our stock) by an individual or entity could cause that individual or entity or another individual or entity to own constructively in excess of the relevant ownership limits. Any attempt to own or transfer shares of our common stock or of any of our other capital stock in violation of these restrictions may result in the shares being automatically transferred to a charitable trust or may be void. Even though our certificate of incorporation contains the ownership limits, there can be no assurance that these provisions will be effective to prevent our qualification for taxation as a REIT from being jeopardized, including under the affiliated tenant rule. Furthermore, there can be no assurance that we will be able to monitor and enforce the ownership limits. If the restrictions in our certificate of incorporation are not effective and, as a result, we fail to satisfy the REIT tax rules described above, then absent an applicable relief provision, we will fail to remain qualified for taxation as a REIT.

In addition, the ownership and transfer restrictions could delay, defer or prevent a transaction or a change in control that might involve a premium price for our stock or otherwise be in the best interest of our stockholders. As a result, the overall effect of the ownership and transfer restrictions may be to render more difficult or discourage any attempt to acquire us, even if such acquisition may be favorable to the interests of our stockholders.

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General Risk Factors

The effects of a pandemic (including COVID-19) could have a negative effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We continuously monitored our global operations in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. We implemented procedures focusing on the health and safety of our employees, customers, partners and communities, the continuity of our business offerings and compliance with governmental regulations and local public health guidance and ordinances. While our business operations continued without interruption and our IBX data centers remained fully operational to date, we cannot guarantee our business operations or our IBX data centers will not be negatively impacted in the future because of another pandemic, including one related to COVID-19.

The market price of our stock may continue to be highly volatile, and the value of an investment in our common stock may decline.

The market price of the shares of our common stock has recently been and may continue to be highly volatile. General economic and market conditions, like the ones we are currently experiencing, and market conditions for telecommunications, data center and REIT stocks in general, may affect the market price of our common stock.

Announcements by us or others, or speculations about our future plans, may also have a significant impact on the market price of our common stock. These may relate to:

•our results of operations or forecasts;

•new issuances of equity, debt or convertible debt by us, including issuances through any existing ATM Program;

•increases in market interest rates and changes in other general market and economic conditions, including inflationary concerns;

•changes to our capital allocation, tax planning or business strategy;

•our qualification for taxation as a REIT and our declaration of distributions to our stockholders;

•changes in U.S. or foreign tax laws;

•changes in management or key personnel;

•developments in our relationships with customers;

•announcements by our customers or competitors;

•changes in regulatory policy or interpretation;

•governmental investigations;

•changes in the ratings of our debt or stock by rating agencies or securities analysts;

•our purchase or development of real estate and/or additional IBX data centers;

•our acquisitions of complementary businesses; or

•the operational performance of our IBX data centers.

The stock market has from time-to-time experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations, which have particularly affected the market prices for telecommunications companies, and which have often been unrelated to their operating performance. These broad market fluctuations may adversely affect the market price of our common stock. One of the factors that investors may consider in deciding whether to buy or sell our common stock is our distribution rate as a percentage of our stock price relative to market interest rates. If market interest rates increase, prospective investors may demand a higher distribution rate or seek alternative investments paying higher dividends or interest. As a result, interest rate fluctuations and conditions in the capital markets may affect the market value of our common stock. Furthermore, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and/or damages, and divert management's attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.

Inadequate or inaccurate external and internal information, including budget and planning data, could lead to inaccurate financial forecasts and inappropriate financial decisions.

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Our financial forecasts are dependent on estimates and assumptions regarding budget and planning data, market growth, foreign exchange rates, our ability to remain qualified for taxation as a REIT, and our ability to generate sufficient cash flow to reinvest in the business, fund internal growth, make acquisitions, pay dividends and meet our debt obligations. Our financial projections are based on historical experience and on various other assumptions that our management believes to be reasonable under the circumstances and at the time they are made.

We continue to evolve our forecasting models as necessary and appropriate but if our predictions are inaccurate and our results differ materially from our forecasts, we could make inappropriate financial decisions. Additionally, inaccuracies in our models could adversely impact our compliance with REIT asset tests, future profitability, stock price and/or stockholder confidence.

Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, especially the strength of the U.S. dollar, in the markets in which we operate internationally could harm our results of operations.

We have experienced and may continue to experience gains and losses resulting from fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. To date, the majority of revenues and costs in our international operations are denominated in foreign currencies. Where our prices are denominated in U.S. Dollars, our sales and revenues could be adversely affected by declines in foreign currencies relative to the U.S. Dollar, thereby making our offerings more expensive in local currencies. We are also exposed to risks resulting from fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates in connection with our international operations. To the extent we are paying contractors in foreign currencies, our operations could cost more than anticipated as a result of declines in the U.S. Dollar relative to foreign currencies. In addition, fluctuating foreign currency exchange rates have a direct impact on how our international results of operations translate into U.S. Dollars.

Although we currently undertake, and may decide in the future to further undertake, foreign exchange hedging transactions to reduce foreign currency transaction exposure, we do not currently intend to eliminate all foreign currency transaction exposure. In addition, REIT compliance rules may restrict our ability to enter into hedging transactions. Therefore, any weakness of the U.S. Dollar may have a positive impact on our consolidated results of operations because the currencies in the foreign countries in which we operate may translate into more U.S. Dollars. However, as we have experienced more recently, if the U.S. Dollar strengthens relative to the currencies of the foreign countries in which we operate, our consolidated financial position and results of operations may be negatively impacted as amounts in foreign currencies will generally translate into fewer U.S. Dollars. For additional information on foreign currency risks, refer to our discussion of foreign currency risk in "Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk" included in Item 2 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

If our internal controls are found to be ineffective, our financial results or our stock price may be adversely affected.

Our most recent evaluation of our controls resulted in our conclusion that, as of December 31, 2022, in compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, our internal controls over financial reporting were effective. Our ability to manage our operations and growth through, for example, the integration of recently acquired businesses, the adoption of new accounting principles and tax laws, and our overhaul of our back-office systems that, for example, support the customer experience from initial quote to customer billing and our revenue recognition process, will require us to further develop our controls and reporting systems and implement or amend new or existing controls and reporting systems in those areas where the implementation and integration is still ongoing. All of these changes to our financial systems and the implementation and integration of acquisitions create an increased risk of deficiencies in our internal controls over financial reporting. If, in the future, our internal control over financial reporting is found to be ineffective, or if a material weakness is identified in our controls over financial reporting, our financial results may be adversely affected. Investors may also lose confidence in the reliability of our financial statements which could adversely affect our stock price.

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Terrorist activity, or other acts of violence, including violence stemming from the current climate of political and economic uncertainty, could adversely impact our business.

The continued threat of terrorist activity and other acts of war or hostility both domestically and abroad by terrorist organizations, organized crime organizations, or other criminals along with violence stemming from political unrest, contribute to a climate of political and economic uncertainty in many of the regions in which we operate. Due to existing or developing circumstances, we may need to incur additional costs in the future to provide enhanced security, including cybersecurity and physical security, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations. These circumstances may also adversely affect our ability to attract and retain customers and employees, our ability to raise capital and the operation and maintenance of our IBX data centers.

We may be subject to securities class action and other litigation, which may harm our business and results of operations.

We may be subject to securities class action or other litigation. For example, securities class action litigation has often been brought against a company following periods of volatility in the market price of its securities. Litigation can be lengthy, expensive, and divert management's attention and resources. Results cannot be predicted with certainty and an adverse outcome in litigation could result in monetary damages or injunctive relief. Further, any payments made in settlement may directly reduce our revenue under U.S. GAAP and could negatively impact our results of operations for the period. For all of these reasons, litigation could seriously harm our business, results of operations, financial condition or cash flows.

We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights.

We cannot make assurances that the steps taken by us to protect our intellectual property rights will be adequate to deter misappropriation of proprietary information or that we will be able to detect unauthorized use and take appropriate steps to enforce our intellectual property rights. We also are subject to the risk of litigation alleging infringement of third-party intellectual property rights. Any such claims could require us to spend significant sums in litigation, pay damages, develop non-infringing intellectual property or acquire licenses to the intellectual property that is the subject of the alleged infringement.

We have various mechanisms in place that may discourage takeover attempts.

Certain provisions of our certificate of incorporation and bylaws may discourage, delay or prevent a third party from acquiring control of us in a merger, acquisition or similar transaction that a stockholder may consider favorable. Such provisions include:

•ownership limitations and transfer restrictions relating to our stock that are intended to facilitate our compliance with certain REIT rules relating to share ownership;

•authorization for the issuance of "blank check" preferred stock;

•the prohibition of cumulative voting in the election of directors;

•limits on the persons who may call special meetings of stockholders;

•limits on stockholder action by written consent; and

•advance notice requirements for nominations to the Board of Directors or for proposing matters that can be acted on by stockholders at stockholder meetings.

In addition, Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which restricts certain business combinations with interested stockholders in certain situations, may also discourage, delay or prevent someone from acquiring or merging with us.

ITEM 1B.    Unresolved Staff Comments

There is no disclosure to report pursuant to Item 1B.

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ITEM 1C.    Cybersecurity

Equinix Risk Management and Strategy

Equinix has processes for assessing, identifying, and managing material risks from cybersecurity threats, both integrated into our Governance, Risk and Compliance Program (the “GRC Program”) and existing within our Information Security function (“InfoSec”) led by our Chief Information Security Officer (“CISO”).

The foundation of risk oversight at Equinix is our Governance, Risk and Compliance Committee (“GRCC”), led by our Chief Compliance Officer, and overseen by the Nominating and Governance Committee of our Board. The GRCC is a global, cross-functional group currently comprised of our most senior leaders, across functions such as Legal, Compliance and Risk Management. The GRCC considers enterprise and emerging risks via Equinix’s Enterprise Risk Management Program (the “ERM Program”). Our ERM Program focuses on the identification, assessment, management, monitoring and reporting of key business risks. Risk identification involves periodic risk surveys and/or risk interviews with key business process owners and executives to identify key strategic, operational, financial, regulatory, compliance and external risks at the enterprise level. We completed a global risk assessment in 2023 to identify enterprise risks. In addition, the ERM Program also includes an Emerging Risks Team of business leaders at Equinix, representing a majority of business functions, that meets monthly to identify fast-moving, potentially impactful risks.

The GRCC prioritizes top enterprise and emerging risks for reporting to, and dialogue with, our executive staff at least quarterly, and from this discussion, risks are presented to the Nominating and Governance Committee to consider for further assessment and report-out either to a committee or the full Board as appropriate.

The ERM Program works with those responsible for a given area of risk to gather, evaluate, and prioritize risk information for this assessment process through use of an enterprise risk profile document. Top risks, including those related to cybersecurity, are evaluated through a detailed risk assessment, and the risks are reexamined periodically as needed. InfoSec performs an annual refresh of an information security risk profile document as required by this process, and the results of such assessment are reported out for escalation, prioritization and reporting on an annual basis.

Cybersecurity Risk Management and Strategy

Equinix cybersecurity risk management activities and outcomes are guided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) Cybersecurity Framework (“CSF”) and assessed by a third party. In addition, our cybersecurity program is certified globally against the International Organization for Standardization (“ISO”) 27001 standards. Currently, our cybersecurity program includes the following key categories of security controls with many security capabilities serving under each category Governance, Access Control, Awareness and Training, Audit and Accountability, Configuration Management, Contingency Planning, Incident Response, Data Security, Continuous Monitoring, Maintenance Controls, Media Protection, Physical Protections, Risk Assessment, Third-Party Risk Management, System and Communications Projection, and System and Information Integrity.

Equinix has also implemented controls designed to identify and mitigate cybersecurity risk associated with our use of third-party service providers, such as security risk assessments. We use a variety of inputs in such assessments, including information supplied by the third parties and regular monitoring.

Equinix conducts regular employee training on how to spot suspicious activity, educates employees on potential security risks, and periodically runs simulations of cyber incidents for employees across various functions to assess and refine response capabilities. Equinix also offers a role-based security certification for its software engineering employees.

Equinix’s cybersecurity risk management processes are carried out in the context of broader business objectives and are integrated into Equinix’s broader risk management processes as described above in “Equinix Risk Management and Strategy”.

Equinix relies on its internal InfoSec team, and does not generally engage any consultants, auditors, or other third parties in connection with processes for assessing, identifying and managing risks from cybersecurity threats. However, Equinix does regularly engage with law enforcement communities with the intent to continuously improve and enhance its cybersecurity program.

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Board of Directors’ Oversight of Risks from Cybersecurity Threats

The Nominating and Governance Committee oversees our GRC Program per its charter, reviewing and considering developments related to the GRC Program and reporting on the GRC Program’s activities and recommendations to the full Board.

Information security risks have been deemed by our Board to be of critical importance to Equinix, and thus the Nominating and Governance Committee receives quarterly updates on cybersecurity and the full Board receives a briefing on cybersecurity at least annually. These briefings are conducted by our CISO and members of the InfoSec leadership team, and cover topics such as key risk indicators, the status of strategic programs, operational updates and key initiatives, past and future action plans, and InfoSec functional updates.

In the event of a material cybersecurity incident, the full Board would be convened on a frequent basis to receive updates and provide oversight.

Management’s Role in Assessing and Managing Material Risks from Cybersecurity Threats

The Information Security Steering Committee (“ISSC”) is a key element of our cybersecurity strategy. The ISSC is chaired by the CISO and comprises of a cross-functional group from various functions in the company. The ISSC aims to align our security and compliance programs with business objectives. Specifically, the ISSC (i) facilitates identification of risk-based priorities and trade offs; (ii) aims to ensure economies of scale and consistency of information security and compliance across IT assets at the company.; (iii) reviews and approves information security policies; (iv) reviews requests for policy and risk exceptions to provide a “Risk Acceptance Authorization”; and (v) serves as a communications channel and steward to cultivate a culture of trust across the enterprise. 

The ISSC currently meets quarterly. In addition, various subcommittees meet on an as-needed basis to address business needs. At the ISSC, topics such as changes to the InfoSec risk register, notable issues, and information security projects are discussed.

Our CISO has extensive experience leading global security and IT organizations. He also serves on a public company board as an independent director providing cybersecurity expertise. Team members supporting our program have relevant education and information security experience.

Risks From Cybersecurity Threats

Although we believe we have a robust program to protect against cybersecurity risks, we may not be able to prevent a cybersecurity incident that could have a material adverse effect on us. While we maintain cybersecurity insurance, the costs related to cybersecurity threats or disruptions may not be fully insured. See Item 1A. “Risk Factors” for further discussion of cybersecurity risks.

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ITEM 2.    Properties

Our executive offices are located in Redwood City, California, with sales offices in several cities throughout the U.S. Our EMEA headquarters office is located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and we also have sales offices in several cities throughout EMEA. Our Asia-Pacific headquarters office is located in Hong Kong and we also have sales offices in several cities throughout Asia-Pacific.

The following tables present the locations of our leased and owned IBX data centers and xScaleTM data centers investments as of December 31, 2023, as well as five data centers opened in January 2024.

	AMERICAS
	Metro	Leased (1)	Owned (1) (2)
	Atlanta	●	●
	Bogota		●
	Boston		●
	Calgary	●	●
	Chicago	●	●
	Culpeper		●
	Dallas	●	●
	Washington D.C./Ashburn	●	●
	Denver	●	●
	Houston		●
	Kamloops		●
	Lima		●
	Los Angeles	●	●
	Mexico City		●
	Miami	●	●
	Monterrey	●
	Montreal		●
	New York	●	●
	Ottawa		●
	Philadelphia	●
	Rio de Janeiro	●	●
	Saint John		●
	Santiago		●
	Sao Paulo		●
	Seattle	●	●
	Silicon Valley	●	●
	Toronto	●	●
	Vancouver	●
	Winnipeg	●

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	EMEA
	Metro	Leased (1)	Owned (1) (2)
	Abidjan		●
	Abu Dhabi	●
	Accra		●
	Amsterdam	●	●
	Barcelona	●
	Bordeaux		●
	Dubai	●	●
	Dublin	●	●
	Dusseldorf		●
	East Netherlands	●
	Frankfurt	●	●
	Geneva	●	●
	Genoa		●
	Hamburg		●
	Helsinki	●	●
	Istanbul		●
	Lagos		●
	Lisbon		●
	London	●	●
	Madrid	●	●
	Manchester	●	●
	Milan	●	●
	Munich	●	●
	Muscat		●
	Paris	●	●
	Sofia		●
	Stockholm	●	●
	Warsaw	●	●
	Zurich	●	●

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	Asia-Pacific
	Metro	Leased (1)	Owned (1) (2)
	Adelaide		●
	Brisbane		●
	Canberra		●
	Hong Kong	●
	Kuala Lumpur	●
	Melbourne		●
	Mumbai	●
	Osaka	●	●
	Perth		●
	Seoul	●	●
	Shanghai	●	●
	Singapore	●	●
	Sydney	●	●
	Tokyo	●	●

(1)"●" denotes locations with one or more data centers.

(2)Owned sites include IBX data centers subject to long-term ground leases.

The following table presents an overview of our portfolio of IBX data centers as of December 31, 2023:

	# of IBXs (1)	Total Cabinet Capacity (1)(2)	Cabinets Billed (1)	Cabinet Utilization % (1)(3)		MRR per Cabinet (1)(4)
Americas	108	145,400	112,900	78	%	$	2,527
EMEA	84	136,200	109,100	80	%	1,991
Asia-Pacific	50	80,900	65,300	81	%	2,104
Total	242	362,500	287,300

(1)Excludes 18 unconsolidated data centers (17 xScale data centers and the MC1 IBX data center) and includes the KL1 and SL4 data centers opened in January 2024. The AB1, AC1, LG1, LG2, KL1 and SL4 data centers are included in the # of IBXs only.

(2)Cabinets represent a specific amount of space within an IBX data center. Customers can combine and use multiple adjacent cabinets within an IBX data center, depending on their space requirements.

(3)The cabinet utilization rate represents the percentage of cabinet space billed versus total cabinet capacity, taking into consideration power limitations.

(4)MRR per cabinet represents average monthly recurring revenue recognized divided by the average number of cabinets billing during the fourth quarter of the year. Americas MRR per cabinet excludes Infomart non-IBX tenant income and EMEA MRR per cabinet excludes MainOne revenue.

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The following table presents a summary of our significant IBX data center projects under construction as of December 31, 2023:

Property	Property Location	Target Open Date	Sellable Cabinets	Total Capex (in Millions) (1)
Americas:
MX2 phase III	Mexico City	Q2 2024	1,200	$	56
NY11 phase IV	New York	Q2 2024	550	87
NY3 phase I	New York	Q3 2024	1,200	250
MI1 phase III	Miami	Q1 2025	1,050	86
SP4 phase IV	São Paulo	Q1 2025	750	22
MO2 phase I	Monterrey	Q1 2025	725	79
ST2 phase II	Santiago	Q1 2025	425	46
RJ3 phase I	Rio de Janeiro	Q1 2025	550	94
TR6 phase II	Toronto	Q2 2025	900	123
DA11 phase III	Dallas	Q2 2025	2,000	186
DC22 phase I	Washington, D.C.	Q4 2025	2,125	260
DC2 phase II	Washington, D.C.	Q4 2025	425	36
SP6 phase I	São Paulo	Q1 2026	1,125	110
			13,025	1,435
EMEA:
LG2 phase II	Lagos	Q1 2024	150	9
HH1 phase II	Hamburg	Q2 2024	325	9
BA2 phase I	Barcelona	Q2 2024	650	56
MU4 phase II	Munich	Q2 2024	750	22
PA10 phase II	Paris	Q2 2024	700	32
BX1 phase II & III & IV	Bordeaux	Q3 2024	800	64
JN1 phase I	Johannesburg	Q3 2024	700	21
IL4 phase I	Istanbul	Q3 2024	1,125	64
MA5 phase II	Manchester	Q4 2024	775	39
SN1 phase I	Salalah	Q4 2024	125	14
LG2 phase III	Lagos	Q1 2025	275	29
LS2 phase I	Lisbon	Q1 2025	625	53
LG3 phase I	Lagos	Q1 2025	225	22
LD10 phase IV	London	Q3 2025	850	63
MD5 phase I	Madrid	Q3 2025	1,700	115
FR8 phase II	Frankfurt	Q1 2026	1,400	193
			11,175	805
Asia-Pacific:
KL1 phase I	Kuala Lumpur	Q1 2024	450	16
MB4 phase I	Mumbai	Q1 2024	350	3
SL4 phase I	Seoul	Q1 2024	475	6
JH1 phase I	Johor	Q2 2024	500	38
OS3 phase III	Osaka	Q2 2024	600	20
SY5 phase III	Sydney	Q2 2024	2,675	121
CN1 phase I	Chennai	Q3 2024	850	65
ME2 phase III	Melbourne	Q3 2024	1,500	39
TY15 phase I	Tokyo