Data center giant Equinix significantly raised its 2026 forecast after posting another record-heavy quarter on the back of artificial intelligence demand and more data center construction.
Strong Q2 Results
The Redwood City, Calif.-based data center real estate investment trust (REIT) generated $2.63 billion in second-quarter revenue, up 7 percent from $2.44 billion in the first quarter and 16 percent from $2.26 billion a year earlier. The increase came as operating growth and one-time fees from the firm’s xScale hyperscale business boosted its results.
Net income reached $477 million, up from $415 million in the first quarter and $367 million during the second quarter of 2025. Net income attributable to common shareholders totaled $479 million, or $4.83 per share.
Funds from operations (FFO), REITs’ main cash flow measure, rose to $854 million from $758 million in the previous quarter and $689 million a year earlier.
High Demand
Equinix delivered $424 million in annualized gross bookings, its highest second-quarter total and second-highest quarterly volume on record. Volume climbed from $378 million during the first quarter and $345 million in the same timeframe last year.
Pre-sales hit roughly $110 million.
Fox-Martin stated during the earnings call that the majority of the biggest deals originated from AI workloads.
Capacity is accelerating rapidly, suggesting that the marketplace currently outpaces build schedules. This creates a bottleneck that represents significant opportunity for the company. As traditional enterprise workloads move to the cloud, the infrastructure required for massive AI training models demands power and cooling density unavailable in standard office buildings.
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Stabilized data centers held utilization near 82 percent. The portfolio generated $1.89 billion in revenue, a 7 percent annual increase, while yielding a 27 percent cash return on gross property investment compared to 24 percent previously.
Equinix ended the second quarter with 52 projects underway across 33 markets after adding nine since April, including new ground lease projects in Chicago and abroad. Capital expenditures rose to approximately $1.58 billion, up from $1.26 billion in the first quarter and $989 million a year earlier, with roughly 90 percent of the latest spending directed toward capacity expansion.
Management is also pulling more than 7,000 retail cabinets — or server storage racks — forward from 2027 into the fourth quarter of this year, effectively doubling the number of cabinets expected to be delivered during the second half of the year.
The xScale portfolio signed 134 megawatts of leasing in the Americas, with one transaction adding about $120 million in nonrecurring fees. It holds 196 megawatts of capacity under development, 182 megawatts of which is already leased, securing revenue flow for the remainder of the year.
Equinix reported $224 million in real estate acquisitions and $348 million in asset-sale proceeds during the first half of 2026.
Raising the Bar
The REIT expects revenue this year to range from $10.21 billion to $10.29 billion, representing an 11 to 12 percent annual increase over the previous forecast. Adjusted FFO guidance rose to between $4.24 billion and $4.30 billion, while spending jumped to between $4.71 billion and $5.69 billion from roughly $3.8 billion.
“This is the largest single guidance raise in the history of our company,” Fox-Martin said.
Equinix also raised its 2027-to-2029 outlook, forecasting annual revenue growth of 10 to 13 percent, annual capital expenditure of $5 billion to $7 billion, and adjusted FFO-per-share growth of 9 to 12 percent. More than 80 percent of the planned expansion will be concentrated within its 25 largest global markets.
