Dell and Equinix are pitching cloud adjacent colocation as the new default for placing high-value, latency-sensitive data close to hyperscaler compute without surrendering control.
The core building blocks are Dell PowerStore for all-flash NVMe storage and PowerFlex for software-defined compute+storage, both running in Equinix facilities and optionally on-prem.
For AI and other GPU-heavy workloads, this model keeps large datasets in a central Equinix hub while bursting compute into AWS, Azure, or private clusters over low-latency private fabric, which helps with egress costs and data gravity.
Equinix’s global footprint (250+ data centers) matters for AI because it supports regional data residency, proximity to users, and access to multiple clouds from the same rack.
Operationally, enterprises can consolidate storage into Equinix to offload data center build-outs, smooth hardware refresh cycles, and still run a consistent Dell stack across sites.
This is essentially Dell’s path to private cloud and hybrid-cloud consistency anchored in colo, rather than public-cloud-native storage, with clear implications for GPU cluster placement and data locality.
Worth a read if you are deciding where to park AI training data and enterprise storage while juggling multi-cloud and colocation strategy.
Source: Dell and Equinix Partner To Deliver Cloud-Connected Data Center | Dell
