 Welcome to JSA TV Europe and our live two-day events on 2023 predictions. I'm John Marksley, and joining me today is Eleni Kaldre, Business Development Director for EMEA at Dequinix. Eleni, it's a pleasure seeing you again. It's been a couple of months since we last saw each other. I hope you've had a good summer. And I wanted to start maybe talking about around climate and sustainability. So how have you seen the climate conversation and target shifting in 2022? Hi, well, thanks, Cheryl. I think it is the topic of the moment. I don't think you can go to an event in any space right now and not here. You know, the climate agenda being mentioned. And I think there's a real shift in the market and we're entering a real new dynamic. And I think a lot of that has to do with incoming regulations. So up until this point, we've seen across different industries a lot of public pledges, you know, commitments to climate goals. And we've seen voluntary disclosures as well. And a lot of that has to do with the work done by the various cops that have taken place over the last years. But what we're seeing is the EU is taking the first movement into mandatory reporting. And so next year we have coming in for CSRD and EU taxonomy. And that is going to create transparency, which is what regulation is there to do. And so I think there's a real kind of change of pace in the focus on sustainability because really once the regulation is there and the disclosures are right there, there's going to be a lot of scrutiny from various stakeholders, not just the regulators, but of course customers were all part of the value chain and investors as well, right? So, you know, various studies out there, but, you know, good performance across ESG criteria can really help you with your cost of capital. And conversely, we're seeing the likes of MSCI saying that, you know, if you perform poorly on ESG criteria, you could be hit by perhaps a 1% cost of capital and others like McKinsey are saying that could be higher. So I think moving into a new dynamic of regulation, very varied across the world, a lot of complexity, but transparency is coming. And it's a good thing. But yes, there will be a lot of focus on that shortly going forward as well. Regulations seem to be the key words this time round. I've never done any predictions for the year ahead where literally everyone is measuring regulations. Do you think some people in the industry might be a little bit scared because of the complexity that's going to come with it? Because, of course, there are benefits like you explained on how this is going to push forward with sustainability and the whole conversation shift. But for some, this might be a bit complex to do. I'm not even referring to those that like to keep things under the carpet. I'm actually just talking about the complexity of doing things as the regulators want them. Do you think it will be too much for some people? I think there's a lot to be done by anyone that is owning and operating a data center. You know, obviously, from an equinex perspective, I see the volumes of teams that are working on the agenda. And, you know, the kind of time it takes to unpick the regulations and the stands and then translate those into procedures and update operational handbooks and all of those things. And so I really think given that kind of resource that I see that we're having to apply, I do wonder how kind of smaller operators will be juggling this and particularly enterprises that own their own data centers. If you just have a couple of data centers, then it's going to be really heavy lifting to get in place sort of the measurements that are needed. And, you know, depending where those sites are, obviously there's going to be different jurisdictions, different reporting coming. And it's not a once and done. This is the beginning, right? The EU taxonomy is I think is this every four years intended to be updated at least. And that's just one regulatory reporting framework. So I think you make a great point and a very clear point which is this is only the beginning because I think a lot of people I did ask a question about complexity. If it's going to be too much for some, but even if it's complex now, it is on the beginning. There's going to be a lot more. There's going to be a lot of upgrades and changes and new things that we don't even know about, especially in the next two, three years, things that we don't even know we need them at this stage. But then the question then becomes and you've already kind of mentioned that comes to have on premises data centers. So running a data center is becoming very burdensome to many. It costs money, it takes a lot of time. It's hard to keep up with the industry as well in technology. How can the data center space help enterprises, especially enterprises run the data centers? Yeah, well, I think there's a number of challenges, right? They're facing enterprises that run their own data centers. I mean, first off, it's not a new theme, but digital transformation. So there's pressure to update IT stacks and take advantage of the latest technologies. And so oftentimes, those applications actually function better perhaps in a cloud or a hybrid cloud environment. They need to be located within a value chain and ecosystem. We've got to think about the application performance. So you're seeing a lot of migration of kind of new applications and new app development happening outside of these kind of traditional legacy data centers anyway. So that's an issue when there's less happening in the data centers to the asset is supporting less of the business. I think another couple of challenges, I mean, in the last year, obviously, we've seen real volatility in the energy markets. And again, if you operate at a small scale, kind of managing that and managing the hedging and the risk exposure is extremely difficult. And it is easier to do that at scale to show and to absorb some of the shocks that are happening. So I think there's a lot of pressure. We already mentioned the sustainability agenda and environmental resilience and the reporting that's coming, but I think the good news is that there's a whole range of solutions that are out there that will help you build that next level, that next generation architecture, whether that be at the edge, whether that be hybrid cloud, as we mentioned, or any of the new kind of technology stacks, AI, hyper-conversion infrastructure, you can find what you need, I think. And then when we look at equities, because equities is the biggest player in the world. You put billions of dollars on the ground both to builds and to create new services and to help clients. So how do you, how is equities going to help manage those challenges next year and really help people manage their risk exposure, especially within the energy segment? So what's equities planning for next year? That's basically it. Yeah, so there's a lot going on at Equinix. You've been following the news. So, I mean, on the digital transformation agenda, we continue to do what we've been doing for a number of years. We enable those new architectures, re-architecting networks, so that these business applications work in an environment where we're looking at consumption business models, shift to SaaS in any industry. You know, how do you, how do you architect for success there? So we do that through enabling optimized network infrastructure on a global scale. We do that through our digital edge services, whether that be the Equinix fabric, software-defined networking, Equinix metal, Equinix network edge, giving access to any public cloud you might need. So all of those kind of building blocks that are required to build the next generation of your business platform, we have and we've been doing that for years. So that continues. There's a ton of investment going into the digital edge services. So I think between that suite and the colo, traditional colo products that we serve for retail, that continues to be invested in. On the energy front, obviously like any major data center operator, we've had to assess the market and we have made announcements to our customers and how that will be handled going forward. So it's an ongoing risk assessment and we have teams that are managing the, obviously the hedging in the market, making sure that we communicate in a timely manner to customers as possible. We know from our own personal experience that we're all managing adjustments in costs and we're fully aware that we need to give as much a much notice as possible. So that continues. The sustainability programs that we run are only increasing. So we recently announced our programs around data center of the future to explain what it is we're investing in in the direction of technology we think is coming and the road map that Equinix intends to build to support our customers environmental journey as well as our own. So they think there's lots to come there and then it feels like the last few weeks have been a flurry of announcements about acquisitions and investments. Yeah, especially down in Africa. Yeah, that was a very exciting one. So I mean, last year was our first entrance into Africa through the main one acquisition but that's West Africa, which is a huge market with real growth potential but everyone I think was waiting for South Africa. So that would be our second kind of regional footprint in Africa. I'm sure there'd be more to come because it's not just West and South Africa where the business is happening. But we recently also announced Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, Chile as expansion. So acquisitive growth, organic growth as well. We have over 40 projects going in. Yeah, 46 or something. Yeah, exactly. So global expansion is really key to our customers because it is often a global multinational business that we're supporting, right? So it's the closer that we can get our customers to their customers, the better their business is going to perform. Yeah, I think that one of the most interesting things to watch really is the Southern Globe expansion that's happening with equinics and even outside of equinics is just amazing to see all those continents finally getting the attention that they deserve from bringing all those billion of people online. Absolutely. And I think you see that the networks are developing massively. You know, huge attention going into the like the two Africa projects that's bringing huge new bandwidths between Europe, Africa and the Middle East. So I think the potential there for innovation is huge and the Equiano cable as well, going down there through Google. And so those kind of base infrastructure projects are huge investments from the major social players, usually social and cloud players that are investing in this. I think they really mark, you know, great, great intentions for connecting the fight for the globe as you said, yeah. So, yeah. And then I was going to also focus on your team now. What are you guys going to be working on that will service Europe specifically? So in a minute, well, I think for a few of us this year, you know, there's been a big focus on the sustainability agenda and particularly the environmentals because the EU is leading the way with the regulation that's coming. So that's a huge focus. And it is the region that is, you know, directly impacted by the political upheaval around Russia and Ukraine. So continuing to support the markets that are impacted. Obviously, there are a number of markets that are adjacent where we are present and the fallout from that. So lots to be done reactively, but in terms of proactively, it's more of the same. We're rolling out our digital infrastructure offerings into more markets as customer demand as to go into new metros. So I think there'll be further enhancements into rollouts and more of the things that we've been known for to date. Interesting. I must say and commend Nick, Nick was very vocal from the beginning of the invasion in shifting down services, helping staff on the ground. So it was very good to see someone in the industry actually coming forward and talking about something that no one really wants to talk about. In our sector, unfortunately. But Eleni, so if people want to find out more about equinix and what you're working on and reach out, how can they do so? Well, the usual channels. So the equinix.com website is there. If you're interested in the sustainability journey of equinix and it's sustainability.equinix.com, you'll find a wealth of information on there and really interesting news about projects we're doing in the innovation. So if you want to see what we're doing about onsite fuel generation or heat reuse projects or anything in between equally on the social and the government's governance side, you'll find lots of information there. But of course, any any specific questions then do reach out. I'm happy to happy to chat. Absolutely. And then last question. If you had to describe how you're feeling about next year in one words, what world would you choose? I feel optimistic. Yeah, we're coming into the Christmas period. You know, last couple of Christmases have been really jaded with the kind of the COVID and all sorts of restrictions. So I feel like I feel positive going into the 2023. I think it's going to be a good year. Yeah, definitely it has to be. Elin, the Coleray, thank you so much for talking to me and thank you to our viewers for tuning into JSA TV Live. Don't forget to check our social channels for more content. Until next time, happy networking.