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

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

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ITEM 1.	BUSINESS

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Digital business transformation is becoming a global phenomenon. According to IDC, by 2021 at least 50% of global GDP will be digitized, and growth in every industry will be driven by digitally enhanced offerings, operations and relationships. Interconnection becomes a key building block for digital business along that journey because real-time interactions between people, things, locations, clouds and data are critical in a digital age.

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Urbanization is increasing in the majority of metros worldwide. Today, about 55% of the world's population lives in urban areas, and that will grow to 68% by 2050, according to the United Nations. With so many people so close together, digital services must be increasingly concentrated and close to users, so companies can deliver the connectivity their users expect. Interconnection brings applications, data, content and networking into proximity in these densely populated areas. It allows companies to deliver on their service promises, even as demand keeps growing.

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Cybersecurity has increased in frequency, scope and complexity in our more closely connected world. In fact, a large-scale cybersecurity breach is one of the most serious risks facing companies today. Ernst & Young projects the global cost of cybersecurity breaches will reach $6.0 trillion by 2021. Companies need to strengthen their defenses, even as they increase their vulnerability by distributing their data across a variety of sources and users. To do that, businesses need their security controls to be distributed as well, leveraging interconnection out at the edge where most traffic exchange is happening. The direct, private nature of interconnection also increases data protection and lowers the risk of being compromised.

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Data Compliance has become a mandate among businesses around the world. The digital economy may be global, but more countries are regulating the data at the heart of the digital economy and prescribing enhanced rules around personal data protections (e.g., GDPR). But remaining compliant is about more than following the rules. In a Thompson Reuters survey, 69% of respondents said successful compliance efforts can drive up business efficiency and effectiveness by enabling greater focus on value-added activities. The need to address compliance drives interconnection because it enables companies to link their data storage, analytics and clouds in the same business region. That data can stay proximate, and local if required by regulations, but still be accessed globally to meet business requirements.

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Business Ecosystems are becoming the life-blood of digital business. Gartner predicts that by 2021, the number of organizations using a mix of intermediaries will more than double, and that active engagement by these organizations with industries in ecosystems outside their native industry will nearly triple. The reason is that digital trade flows are creating global business and data processes that involve an increasing variety of customers, partners and employees. Interconnection securely and efficiently connects all the players in all these business ecosystems, as those ecosystems expand in depth and number.

•	The need for businesses and organizations to create a "digital edge" - where commerce, population centers and digital ecosystems meet. A more geographically distributed IT infrastructure is needed to support the digital operations that now cover every global region and every aspect of today's global businesses.

•	The growth of "proximity communities" that rely on immediate physical colocation and interconnection with strategic partners and customers. Examples include financial exchange ecosystems for electronic trading and settlement, media and content provider ecosystems, and ecosystems for real-time bidding and fulfillment of internet advertising.

•	The Internet of Things (IoT), big data infrastructures, artificial intelligence (AI) and the emergence of 5G high-speed mobile and wireless networks, which are creating unprecedented quantities of data that fuel digital business.

•	The accelerating adoption and ubiquitous nature of cloud computing technology services, in particular hybrid/multiclouds, along with enterprise cloud service offerings such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and security and disaster recovery services.

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The continuing growth of consumer internet traffic from new bandwidth-intensive services (e.g., video, voice over IP, social media, mobile data, gaming, data-rich media), Ethernet and wireless services, as well as new devices (e.g., wearables, home assistances, AR/VR headsets). These devices and services also increase the requirements for anytime, anywhere and any device interconnection out at the edge to improve the performance, security, scalability and reliability of interconnecting people, locations, clouds, data and things.

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Significant increases in power and cooling requirements for today's data center equipment. New generations of servers and storage devices continue to concentrate processing capability and the associated power consumption and cooling load into smaller footprints; and many legacy-built data centers are unable to accommodate these new power and cooling demands. The high capital costs associated with building and maintaining "in-sourced" data centers creates an opportunity for capital savings by leveraging an outsourced colocation model.

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•	Reach Everywhere

•	Interconnect Everyone

•	Integrate Everything

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Interconnection leadership: The global digital economy's demands for fast, secure business collaboration creates a need for interconnection across Equinix's global platform. As this digital journey intensifies, businesses are creating new commerce and collaboration models to compete. Success in this fast-moving world can be facilitated by a single interconnection platform for digital business that is connected physically and virtually around the world. Companies that can deploy an interconnected digital infrastructure can connect broadly and securely scale the integration of their business at the digital edge.

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Cloud access and expertise: Equinix is home to more than 2,900 cloud and IT service providers and a variety of secure routes to the efficiencies, performance and cost-savings of the cloud. The Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric™ ("ECX Fabric") offers on-demand access to multiple cloud providers from multiple networks, enabling customers to design scalable cloud services tailored to their needs at a given moment. In 2018, Equinix undertook the next phase in the evolution of Platform Equinix to achieve the direct physical and virtual connection of its IBX data centers around the world. This advance enables our customers to connect on demand to any other customer from any Equinix location, equipping digital businesses to scale their operations rapidly across the largest markets globally. On the ECX Fabric, customers do not have to be in the same IBX data center as their cloud provider(s); they can remotely access cloud services as if they were physically close to the provider. Equinix Professional Services for Cloud experts enable our customers to successfully deploy a mix of private, public, hybrid and multicloud environments over a global interconnected cloud fabric to best fit their business and customer requirements.

•	Comprehensive global solution: With 200 IBX data centers in 52 markets in the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific, Equinix offers a consistent, interconnected global solution.

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Premium data centers and expertise: Equinix IBX data centers feature advanced design, security, power and cooling, and data center infrastructure management (DCIM) elements to provide customers with industry-leading visibility and reliability, including average uptime of 99.9999% globally in 2018. Equinix Professional Services offers practical guidance and proven solutions to help customers optimize their data center architecture.

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Dynamic interconnected business ecosystems: Equinix's network- and cloud-neutral model has enabled us to attract a critical mass of networks and cloud and IT services providers, and that, in turn, attracts other businesses seeking to interconnect within a single location or across metros. This local ecosystem model leverages lower networking costs and optimizes the performance of data exchange. At the same time, the ECX Fabric enables private access to remote business ecosystems in regionally distributed IBX data centers to further reduce long-distance networking costs and deliver high performance. As Equinix grows and attracts an ever-more diversified base of customers, the value of Equinix's IBX interconnected data center offering increases.

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Improved economics: Customers seeking to outsource their data center operations rather than build their own capital-intensive data centers enjoy significant capital cost savings. Customers also benefit from improved economics because of the broad access to networks and clouds that Equinix provides. Rather than purchasing often costly local loops from multiple transit providers, customers can connect directly to more than 1,800 networks and 2,900 cloud and IT service providers inside Equinix's IBX data centers.

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Leading interconnection insight: After more than 20 years in the industry, Equinix has a specialized staff of industry experts, professional services specialists and solutions architects who helped build and shape the interconnection infrastructure of the internet, and who are now positioned to do the same for digital businesses. This specialization and industry knowledge base offers customers unique expertise and the competitive advantage needed to compete in the global digital economy.

•	Lasting sustainability: Energy efficiency and environmental sustainability are a part of everything we do, whether we're building new data centers or upgrading existing facilities. We have committed to design, build and operate our data centers with high energy efficiency standards, and we have a long-term goal of using 100% clean and renewable energy across our global platform.

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•	Large enterprises with significant IT expertise and requirements

•	Small and medium businesses looking to outsource data center requirements

•	Cloud and network service providers

•	Electronic trading, digital payments and financial services companies

•	Internet application providers

•	Major internet content, entertainment and social networking providers

•	Shared, dedicated and managed hosting providers

•	Mobile and network service providers

•	Content delivery networks

•	A Meet Me Room (MMR) is typically a smaller space, generally 5,000 square feet or less, located in a major carrier hotel and often found in a wholesale data center facility.

•	A carrier-neutral data center is generally larger than an MMR and may be a stand-alone building separate from existing carrier hotels.

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•	Application hosting by organizations of any size, including large enterprises

•	Hosted or managed messaging, including Microsoft Exchange and other complex messaging applications

•	Complex or highly scalable web hosting or e-commerce websites

•	Managed storage solutions (including large drive arrays or backup robots)

•	Server disaster recovery and business continuity, including clustering and global server load balancing

•	Database servers, applications and services

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ITEM 1A.	RISK FACTORS

•	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;

•	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;

◦	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 negative effects resulting from uncertainty about completion of the respective acquisition;

•	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 before integrating them;

•	the possibility that we may be unable to integrate or migrate IT systems, which could create a risk of errors or performance problems and could affect our ability to meet customer service level obligations;

•	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;

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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;

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•	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 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, including claims from terminated employees, customers, former stockholders or other third parties;

•	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, environmental liability or asbestos liability, for which insurance coverage may be insufficient or unavailable, or other issues not discovered in the diligence process; and

•	the possibility that we receive limited or incorrect information about the acquired business in the diligence process. For example, we sometimes do not receive all of the customer contracts associated with our acquisitions in the diligence process, which affects our visibility into customer termination rights and could expose us to additional liabilities.

•	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;

•	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;

•	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, such as limiting our ability to repurchase shares of our common stock;

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•	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 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 such as the United Kingdom's pending withdrawal from the European Union ("Brexit");

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

•	compliance with anti-bribery and corruption laws;

•	compliance with economic and trade sanctions enforced by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of Treasury; and

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•	compliance with evolving governmental regulation with which we have little experience.

•	our operating results or forecasts;

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•	new issuances of equity, debt or convertible debt by us, including issuances through our 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.

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•	human error;

•	equipment failure;

•	physical, electronic and cyber security breaches;

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

•	extreme temperatures;

•	water damage;

•	fiber cuts;

•	power loss;

•	terrorist acts;

•	sabotage and vandalism; and

•	failure of business partners who provide our resale products.

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•	construction delays;

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

•	unexpected budget changes;

•	increased prices for 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; and

•	delays related to permitting from public agencies and utility companies.

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•	fluctuations of foreign currencies in the markets in which we operate;

•	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;

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•	changes in general economic conditions, such as an economic downturn, or specific market conditions in the telecommunications and internet industries, both of which may have an impact on our customer base;

•	charges to earnings resulting from past acquisitions due to, among other things, impairment of goodwill or intangible assets, reduction in the useful lives of intangible assets acquired, identification of additional assumed contingent liabilities or revised estimates to restructure an acquired company's operations;

•	the duration of the sales cycle for our offerings and our ability to ramp our newly-hired sales persons to full productivity 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;

•	acquisitions or dispositions we may make;

•	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;

•	the timing required for new and future IBX data centers to open or become fully utilized;

•	competition in the markets in which we operate;

•	conditions related to international operations;

•	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 rent expense as we amend our IBX data center leases in connection with extending their lease terms when their initial lease term expiration dates approach or changes in shared operating costs in connection with our leases, which are commonly referred to as common area maintenance expenses;

•	the timing and magnitude of other operating expenses, including taxes, expenses related to the expansion of sales, marketing, operations and acquisitions, if any, of complementary businesses and assets;

•	the cost and availability of adequate public utilities, including power;

•	changes in employee stock-based compensation;

•	overall inflation;

•	increasing interest expense due to any increases in interest rates and/or potential additional debt financings;

•	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").

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•	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.

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

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•	we will be subject to 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.

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ITEM 1B.	UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

ITEM 2.	PROPERTIES

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

(1)	Non-financial metrics presented on the table above include Zenium data center, Itconic, and Metronode acquisitions.

(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 billing 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. Brazil, Colombia, Infomart Dallas non-IBX tenant income and Bit-isle MIS are excluded from MRR per cabinet calculations.

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(1)	Capital expenditures are approximate and may change based on final construction details.

(2)	Dedicated hyperscale data centers

ITEM 3.	LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

ITEM 4.	MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURE

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ITEM 5.	MARKET FOR REGISTRANT'S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

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ITEM 6.	SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

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(1)

On January 1, 2018, we adopted Topic 606 using the modified retrospective method applied to those contracts which were not completed as of January 1, 2018. The impacts are primarily related to the costs to obtain a customer contract and from the recognition of installation revenue, which are recognized over the contract period, rather than over the estimated installation life as under the prior revenue standard. The consolidated statement of operations for the year ended December 31, 2018 reflected the adoption of Topic 606. See Note 1 of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

(2)

The higher income tax expense for the year ended December 31, 2014 was primarily attributed to the de-recognition of $324.1 million of net deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities in December 2014, when our Board of Directors formally approved our conversion to a REIT and we reassessed the deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities of our U.S. operations included in the REIT structure.

(3)	During the year ended December 31, 2015, we paid $10.95 per share of special distribution and $6.76 per share of quarterly cash dividend. During the year ended December 31, 2014, we paid $7.57 per share of special distribution.

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(1)	The company adopted ASU 2015-03 during the year ended December 31, 2015. As a result, debt issuance costs of $35.5 million were reclassified from other assets to debt as of December 31, 2014.

(2)

On January 1, 2018, we adopted Topic 606 using the modified retrospective method applied to those contracts which were not completed as of January 1, 2018. We recorded a net increase to opening retained earnings of $269.8 million as of January 1, 2018 due to the cumulative impact of adopting Topic 606, with the impact primarily related to the costs to obtain a customer contract and from the recognition of installation revenue, which are recognized over the contract period, rather than over the estimated installation life as under the prior revenue standard. See Note 1 of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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ITEM 7.	MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

•	Overview

•	Results of Operations

•	Non-GAAP Financial Measures

•	Liquidity and Capital Resources

•	Contractual Obligations and Off-Balance-Sheet Arrangements

•	Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

•	Recent Accounting Pronouncements

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