NVIDIA GTC 2025 | Adam Berlew, Equinix

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Adam Berlew

CMO

Equinix

From GPUs to global networks: Equinix’s blueprint for an AI-ready world

The AI revolution has shifted up a gear. Embracing that intensity, digital infrastructure stakeholders, such as Equinix Inc., are leveraging advancements in Nvidia Corp.’s new crop of GPUs, servers and networking-focused hardware to bring full-powered AI to bear.Equinix’s Adam Berlew discusses the need for purpose-built AI data centers.“We’re the AI-ready data center — from a global perspective, we’re the place to do it,” said Adam Berlew (pictured), chief marketing officer of Equinix. “That’s an amazing partnership

play_circle_outline Equinix's AI-Ready Data Center Strategy: Partnerships with Nvidia, HPE, Dell, and GPU Clouds for Powerful Solutions

play_circle_outline Future plans for deploying AI factories and expanding partnerships across services.

play_circle_outline Hope for more partnerships, customer stories, and utilization of Equinix fabric at next GTC.

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Adam Berlew, Equinix

Adam Berlew

CMO Equinix

Adam Berlew of Equinix discusses AI and data centers at Nvidia GTC 2025.

Adam Berlew, the chief marketing officer at Equinix, appears at Nvidia GTC 2025 to explore the evolving landscape of AI and data centers. During the discussion held at the Equinix booth in San Jose, theCUBE's host Savannah Peterson delves into the dynamic partnership between Equinix and Nvidia.

In this insightful conversation, Berlew shares their extensive experience in the technology industry, emphasizing how Equinix has emerged as a leading AI-ready data center. Alongside... Read more

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What exactly does it mean to be an AI-ready data center and how is it a unique differentiator for Equinix? add

What is the potential benefit of AI factories being deployed inside Equinix and the use of managed services in the future? add

What are some future plans and strategies for partnerships, customer stories, and utilizing Equinix's services? add

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Adam Berlew, Equinix

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Savannah Peterson

>> Good afternoon, Equinix fans and welcome back to San Jose, California. We are here at Nvidia GTC. My name's Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE's exclusive coverage from the Equinix booth today to kick off all the fun, and I couldn't be more excited to be joined by Adam Berlew, the CMO of Equinix here today, this afternoon. Busy week for you, thanks for making the time.

Adam Berlew

>> Thank you. I mean, this is amazing. Look around us. The world is changing as we see it.

Savannah Peterson

>> The world is changing and the world is changing in this room right now as we sit here. You mentioned you were listening to the keynote and that you felt like it was a historic moment. Tell me a little more about that.

Adam Berlew

>> I did. I mean last year was historic just because of the massive amount of compute that was revealed and how literally he changed the laws of gravity. This year, really changing and addressing the problems of AI. So that AI becomes real for you and me in terms of self-driving cars, robots, you name it. And seeing how they do that was just fantastic.

Savannah Peterson

>> It is fantastic, and I'm really glad that you brought up the moment AI becomes real for the rest of us, essentially, when the humans get to interact with the tech. It's the beat I cover at theCUBE. I think that's so important because we talk a lot about hypothetical use cases or agentic AI within customer service or something like that. And yes, that's touching real people, but there's so much more to it than that. I feel like the keynote today gave us a bit of a preview of all the different ways in which everyone in our lives, not just the nerds, are going to touch the tech. Talk to me a bit, you and Nvidia have been working together for a long time to build best-in-breed solutions. Talk to me a little bit about the partnership and why it's such a good match.

Adam Berlew

>> Well, the partnership is spectacular because as he said in the keynote, "First it's all about scaling up." And what was super cool was he talked about becoming more efficient in doing that and basically flops per kilowatt, if you will. So how do you do floating decimal point calculations-

Savannah Peterson

>> I know I was going to say just the math on that alone is a fun game....

Adam Berlew

>> and more? When you're talking a billion billion, right, an exaflop, that's just crazy. But all that aside, we're the AI-ready data center. So where else do you put that 30,000 pound machine, get power, and we're experts at finding power, and put cooling to cool those machines at scale? From a global perspective, we're the place to do it. So that's an amazing partnership. Then you add on top of that all of the customers that are already deployed and want AI and the enterprises, the networks, the virtual experiences, the ad exchanges, the financial exchanges, the banks.

Savannah Peterson

>> It's everybody.

Adam Berlew

>> Everybody needs it. And there's so many problems that they're trying to solve, and Equinix is the place to do it.

Savannah Peterson

>> So you mentioned that you're an AI-ready data center. We know what that means at theCUBE, but I'm curious, just in case the audience doesn't, what exactly does that mean and how is that such a unique differentiator for Equinix?

Adam Berlew

>> Yeah, I think it's really just a few simple things. Number one, you've got to have the power, right? Power, as Jensen pointed out, is a rare commodity. So we've been great for the last 26 years of finding it. It's not that... It's not a hard thing to do, it's just that we're really skilled at it. The second thing is building the right data center, a data center that can handle the cooling requirements, has the liquid cooling and really is built to the standard that it handles those giant machines. Then lastly, the third thing is, we got to connect it to something. So all the networks in the world that matter are inside Equinix and attached to our global footprint with the 36 countries, every continent and we're truly, outside of the hyperscale, it's truly the only global data center.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah, let's talk about that for a second. I mean, the ecosystem here is so critical in this particular technological transformation. None of us are doing it alone. What is it that is so critical about the partnerships that you have with both Nvidia, but also with HPE and Dell and some of the other big players in the space?

Adam Berlew

>> Yeah, it's really the same thing, right? Dell needs a place to put their AI factory, HP, same thing. People are going to decide what machine they want to use based on their historical relationships, their exact needs. So being able to support all of them is really the value that we bring. It's not about just one provider. And then even on top of it, a lot of the GPU clouds, the core we use of the world, are located inside of Equinix. So if you want to use a GPU cloud and a data factory by Dell, you have the ability to use both of them or do it in the cloud. So you could have this multi-cloud hybrid infrastructure that really can only be achieved around the globe at Equinix.

Savannah Peterson

>> That's pretty compelling. It's no wonder you're best in breed, and everyone's so excited about you. It's no wonder Tony was just glowing. And I know that news that came out earlier today was really thrilling. You have the opportunity to see the conversations across industry, across verticals, and honestly at a few different levels of scale, beyond even just the hyperscalers. What are some of the trends you're seeing in the market right now? What's going on?

Adam Berlew

>> Yeah, it's fascinating because you also heard Justin talk about agentics and agents. So really what people are trying to do is solve their workflow issues across different services. So whether it's a Salesforce agent or a ServiceNow agent, on the one hand, you see all of those services deployed inside of Equinix, but at the same time, what you and I are trying to solve in our day-to-day work is how do I ask the right questions and get answers across all of those services? So those agents become the glue across services. What's even more interesting on top of that, and you heard him talk about it, right, it's about data. Is how people are solving their data problem to pull that data together across multiple services. So what we're seeing is a lot of people centralizing their data inside Equinix to then use different AI factories, leverage agents that are the glue across both the services and the data. So that's the thing that I'm finding just amazing.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yeah. Well, and it's really getting this data out of silos. It's meeting the data where it is.

Adam Berlew

>> Right.

Savannah Peterson

>> We know it's all over right now. We know 50% of the data's on the edge. We've got a lot of folks wanting to handle AI workloads on-prem, and then the cloud is also a pivotal role in connecting the world. You've got your hands full.

Adam Berlew

>> Yeah. As we said, right, the world is changing every minute and it's changing right in this room.

Savannah Peterson

>> I've got three more questions for you.

Adam Berlew

>> All right.

Savannah Peterson

>> What's next? I mean, today's obviously a big announcement. What can we expect from Equinix over the course of the rest of the year?

Adam Berlew

>> Yeah, so as you've seen from the partnership, we're seeing these instant AI factories being deployed inside Equinix. And so we've got one right down the road in Silicon Valley where Nvidia has deployed an AI factory in our data center. So that ability to use an AI factory-managed service is what's next, so that not everybody has to build their own AI factory. I really think the other thing is, as I said, people using agentics across multiple services. So as we build out more and more of those relationships together with Nvidia, you'll see a lot of cool new things happen as well.

Savannah Peterson

>> So we're really just going to get to see a lot of this incredible partnership in the wild. We'll start to see the community using it and some solutions that are going to be touching our real human lives, quite possibly.

Adam Berlew

>> Absolutely. Yeah.

Savannah Peterson

>> All right. Taking off your partnership and CMO hat for a second.

Adam Berlew

>> Yeah.

Savannah Peterson

>> We're living in one of the coolest times in technology, quite possibly ever, especially for us super nerds.

Adam Berlew

>> Yes.

Savannah Peterson

>> What excites you personally most about what's coming in the future, let's say five to 10 years out?

Adam Berlew

>> Yeah. So I actually started as a programmer when I was 14.

Savannah Peterson

>> Oh my gosh.

Adam Berlew

>> And that was a really long time ago. So we were-

Savannah Peterson

>> Talking about a super brain over here.

Adam Berlew

>> We won't say that I was programming in basic. But all that aside, the thing that just excites me is how we're going to solve problems. As you get older, solve health problems, make our lives richer, and do things like not have to drive a car, just go for a ride. I just can't wait for all that to come to life.

Savannah Peterson

>> I know. I feel like we'll finally be living in The Jetsons-

Adam Berlew

>> Exactly....

Savannah Peterson

>> that we were watching when we were kids. Something that I want to bring up that I wasn't necessarily anticipating until I had the wonderful pleasure of working with your team. You've done a great job recruiting women in AI. I love working with Jordan and with Kate. What's your advice for women trying to get into this industry and what's your advice for other teams looking to recruit as well as you have?

Adam Berlew

>> Okay, so I have this theory and it's this tipping point theory, right?

Savannah Peterson

>> Yes.

Adam Berlew

>> So on the one hand for women trying to get in, go find a team that has really a critical mass of women. So if it's a team of 10, you probably need to have at least two so that you're the third or fourth to get over that tipping point where people feel comfortable.

Savannah Peterson

>> Oh, interesting. Okay.

Adam Berlew

>> Because otherwise, if you're just the lone one, you're always going to be the other one. Then I think on the flip side, as a leader, it's about building that critical mass. So then you get over a tipping point where it's just normal.

Savannah Peterson

>> Well, first of all, I love that, it is normal. How did you do so well with your team in particular?

Adam Berlew

>> I've been lucky enough over the years to work with amazing women, and I hold onto those relationships and I make sure wherever I have an opportunity to pull them in, I do. Or wherever I see an opportunity for them to grow, I make sure I recommend them.

Savannah Peterson

>> Love that. That's what stewardship is. That's being an ally. Not surprised the ladies love you so much, Adam. This is great. I'm happy to hear. All right. Final question, I lied, I had one more. What do you hope to be able to say at next GTC that we can't yet say here today?

Adam Berlew

>> I would say that there's going to be more partnerships across all these services that are building agentics and how those are uniquely available inside Equinix. Then the second part of that is how as many enterprises as possible are taking advantage of that.

Savannah Peterson

>> Oh, yeah, some more customer stories.

Adam Berlew

>> More customers. And the third part is we're the network of networks. As I said, all the networks that are really critical are in our data centers. What I would say on top of that is how all of those services and the AI factories are taking advantage of that service are the Equinix fabric.

Savannah Peterson

>> Well, I can't wait to tell all of those stories with you next year, Adam. This has been awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time in such a busy week.

Adam Berlew

>> Thanks for having me.

Savannah Peterson

>> Thank you also to your wonderful team, Jordan and Kate. Like I said-

Adam Berlew

>> They're great....

Savannah Peterson

>> did such a great job of curating, and we really appreciate from all of us at theCUBE, you letting us be here and hang out. Take over half your booth during the show.

Adam Berlew

>> Wow, our pleasure. Thank you.

Savannah Peterson

>> Yes. Hopefully you have found this as fun as we've found it, sitting here with Adam and I having a blast here talking all things AI and data centers from the Equinix booth at Nvidia GTC in San Jose, California. My name's Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE, the leading source for enterprise tech news.