Equinix said on 28 October 2026 that it delivered record annualized gross bookings of $533 million in the third quarter, up 35% from a year earlier, and raised its full-year 2026 guidance for the third consecutive quarter. Its release also lists the launch of Equinix Inference Exchange, built with NVIDIA and Together AI to help enterprises deploy and scale AI inferencing workloads.
By our arithmetic from its filings, Equinix spent $1,558 million on purchases of other property, plant and equipment in the quarter, equal to 60.6% of its $2,571 million of revenues. On the same basis, Microsoft’s ratio was 42.7% and Alphabet’s 40.3% in their releases of the same day.
Short explainer · Equinix Q3 brief
A vertical news Short narrated from the published headlines and opening lines of this piece and four related FourWeekMBA pieces on AI infrastructure spending.
Business Pill · Grid Cost Allocation
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on how the cost of grid upgrades is allocated between large new loads and existing customers. It explains the general idea only and does not discuss Equinix or this quarter.
The key insight: By our arithmetic from its filings, Equinix spent $1,558 million on purchases of other property, plant and equipment in the third quarter, 60.6% of revenues, while its annualized gross bookings reached a record $533 million, up 35%.
Revenues were $2.571 billion, up 11% as reported and 12% on a normalized and constant currency basis, the release says. Operating income was $600 million, up 27%.
Net income attributable to common stockholders was $489 million, up 31%, or $4.93 a share, up 29%. The release says that rise came primarily from higher operating income and a non-recurring fee earned in connection with its investment in the atNorth joint venture.
Adjusted EBITDA was $1.321 billion, up 15% as reported. AFFO per share was $11.64, up 18% as reported, or 12% on a normalized and constant currency basis excluding the benefit of the atNorth joint venture fee.
Third-quarter 2026 purchases of property and equipment as a share of quarterly revenue. Equinix: purchases of other property, plant and equipment (excluding real estate acquisitions), Q3 derived as nine months minus six months from its filings. Microsoft, Alphabet and ServiceNow: their 28 October 2026 releases. Ratios are our arithmetic.
Bookings Growth Sped Up for a Second Straight Quarter
Equinix’s 10-Q filings give annualized gross bookings of $378 million in the first quarter of 2026, up 9%, and $424 million in the second, up 23%. The third-quarter filing gives $533 million, up 35%, and $1.3 billion for the nine months, up 23%.
The filings define the measure as the annualized revenue impact of monthly recurring revenue on newly executed contracts of 12 months or more, excluding contracts for recurring revenue from its joint ventures. Its 10-K put full-year 2025 bookings at $1.6 billion, up 27% from 2024.
The release says monthly recurring revenue grew by double digits for the fourth consecutive quarter, “reflecting the company’s central role in serving traditional and AI workloads”. Chief executive Adaire Fox-Martin said in the release: “Our Q3 results and raised full-year guidance reflect the differentiated position and growing importance of Equinix”.
The Capex Plan Rose From $4.1 Billion to $5-6 Billion
In April, Equinix’s first-quarter release said total capital expenditures were expected to be approximately $4.100 billion for 2026. Its July release raised that range to $5.000 billion to $6.000 billion, with a $1,438 million guidance adjustment to non-recurring capital expenditures. The October release keeps total capital expenditures at $5 billion to $6 billion.
The release says Equinix accelerated new capacity delivery, with “nearly 40% more cabinets planned for delivery in 2026 than initially anticipated”. Its cash flow statements show purchases of other property, plant and equipment of $4,392 million in the first nine months of 2026, against $2,875 million a year earlier, up 53% by our arithmetic.
Subtracting the six-month figures in its second-quarter 10-Q, the third quarter alone comes to $1,558 million, against $1,136 million a year earlier, by our arithmetic. That is 60.6% of quarterly revenues, up from 49.1%.
What Equinix Says About AI
Besides Inference Exchange, the release lists Equinix Enhanced Performance Innovation Centers, which it describes as a global network of production-ready liquid cooling environments for high-density AI infrastructure. It also introduced Fabric One, a connectivity service with AWS and Google Cloud as lead integration partners.
Its 10-Q says customers are consuming more power per cabinet, which it expects to accelerate with the adoption of AI, and that this has driven it to build new data centers to support power and cooling needs twice that of previous ones. It gives cabinet utilization of approximately 78% at 30 September 2026 and 2025.
The 10-Q lists $687 million of equity-method investments in its xScale joint ventures, against $536 million at the end of 2025. It says Equinix contributed $869 million for approximately 34% of a joint venture that acquired atNorth, a Nordic high-density data center provider, on 2 September 2026.
Georgia, Again
The release says Equinix “established a first-of-its-kind partnership in Georgia that protects ratepayers by having Equinix fund all grid infrastructure costs associated with its Hampton data center project through a 20-year commitment”. Its 10-Q says it sold the Hampton campus to its AMER 3 xScale joint venture in January for total consideration of $459 million.
As we read the filings, the demand signal and the spending moved together: bookings growth went from 9% in the first quarter to 23% and then 35%, and the July release lifted the 2026 capex range from approximately $4.1 billion to $5 billion to $6 billion.
As we read the release, Equinix ties its growth to AI in general terms: it says monthly recurring revenue reflects its role in serving traditional and AI workloads, and it lists Inference Exchange and liquid-cooling centres, but it gives no AI share of bookings or revenue.
The 10-Q says customers are drawing more power per cabinet, which Equinix expects to accelerate with the adoption of AI, and that new data centers are built for power and cooling needs twice that of earlier ones.
Adaire Fox-Martin, CEO and President, Equinix, in the Q3 2026 release, 28 October 2026
“Our Q3 results and raised full-year guidance reflect the differentiated position and growing importance of Equinix”
Three Implications
FOR GUIDANCE The release raises the full-year 2026 revenue range to $10.325 billion to $10.365 billion, an increase of approximately 12%.
FOR CAPACITY The release says nearly 40% more cabinets are planned for delivery in 2026 than initially anticipated.
FOR THE GRID The release says Equinix will fund all grid infrastructure costs for its Hampton, Georgia data center project through a 20-year commitment.
The framework argues: “The structural bottleneck isn’t computing, it’s electrons.” It describes a projected gap between new data center demand and available grid capacity.
Equinix’s filings show one operator’s side of that constraint: a capex range raised to $5 billion to $6 billion, new sites built for twice the power and cooling of earlier ones, and a 20-year commitment to fund grid costs in Georgia. The framework does not discuss Equinix.
What Is Not Established
The release does not split bookings or revenue between AI and other workloads, and it gives no megawatt figures for xScale capacity. Inference Exchange is described as a product launch; the release gives no revenue for it.
The capex ratios use purchases of other property, plant and equipment, which exclude real estate acquisitions and spending inside the xScale joint ventures; Microsoft’s and Alphabet’s ratios use their own property-and-equipment lines. The third-quarter figures are derived by subtraction.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
Execution Fault Lines, Concentrated Demand, and Geopolitical Firewalls
This week’s issue: the AI build is not short of demand for its parts. It is short of cheap money, and its end revenue rests on a narrow base of large, often venture-funded buyers.
Equinix’s bookings growth accelerated for a second straight quarter, from 9% to 23% to 35%, and it kept a 2026 capex range of $5 billion to $6 billion, up from approximately $4.1 billion in April. By our arithmetic, its third-quarter property and equipment purchases equalled 60.6% of revenues, a higher share than Microsoft’s or Alphabet’s.
A note on sourcing. Equinix figures come from its third-quarter 2026 results release and Form 10-Q of 28 October 2026 and its earlier 2026 filings (SEC). Microsoft, Alphabet and ServiceNow figures come from their 28 October 2026 results releases. Ratios and derived quarterly figures are our arithmetic; linked earlier pieces carry their own sources.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
