DE-CIX, the world’s leading operator of Internet Exchanges, recorded strong and healthy economic growth in 2022 and successfully continued its global expansion. A total of eleven new locations were announced. In addition to the commissioning of its own Internet Exchanges, such as DE-CIX Leipzig, Richmond and Phoenix, the regional and global expansion was primarily driven by partnerships: On the one hand, by setting up and operating DE-CIX as a Service (DaaS) sites for partners and, on the other hand, by cooperating with other IX operators to share existing infrastructures.

In this context, partnerships were established in a first step with BIX.BG in Sofia (Bulgaria), NIX.CZ in Prague (Czech Republic), Atman in Warsaw (Poland) and InterLAN-IX in Bucharest (Romania). More locations under this partnership model will follow in the coming years. Highlights from 2022 include DE-CIX’s entry into the African market with the announcement of three DaaS Internet Exchanges in conjunction with Rack Centre in Lagos, United S.A. and the NGO “Internet pour tous” in Kinshasa, and LITC in Tripoli. Together with the announcements for DaaS IXs in Baghdad and Aqaba and the implementation of three white-label edge IXs in the US, this brings the total number of built and operated DaaS Internet Exchanges in the global DE-CIX ecosystem to twelve.

Global expansion and increasing customer demand shaped very good financial results

DE-CIX Group AG performed very well in the 2022 financial year, recording an increase in revenue of 13.7 per cent as a result of increased demand for interconnection services, more customer capacity and the expansion of its global IX presence. In the 2022 consolidated financial statements, the global revenues from all company parts grew by 6.67 million to reach 55.38 million Euro. Revenues from international activities increased by 41.8 per cent in 2022 compared to the previous year and accounted for 22.7 per cent of total revenues. EBIT for 2022 amounted to 3.6 million Euro and EBITDA to 5.16 million Euro. No borrowed capital was used in the 2022 financial year.

Expansion of the management team set the course for the next decade of growth

After more than 25 years as CEO and five years as Chair of the Board of DE-CIX Group AG, Internet pioneer Harald A. Summa moved to the DE-CIX Supervisory Board in September 2022. Ivo Ivanov became his successor as Chair of the Board and CEO. Two new positions were also added to the Board: Alongside the acting Board members Ivo Ivanov and Sebastian Seifert (Chief Financial Officer, DE-CIX Group AG), Chief Technology Officer Dr. Thomas King was also appointed to the Board. Furthermore, the internationally renowned sales expert Christian Reuter, who has been managing the worldwide sales and marketing activities in the newly created position of Chief Sales Officer since September 2022, rounded off the Board as the fourth member.

The DE-CIX Group AG management team, from left to right: Sebastian Seifert (CFO and Board Member), Dr. Thomas King (CTO and Board Member), Klaus Landefeld (Member of the Supervisory Board), Ivo Ivanov (CEO and Chair of the Board), Felix Höger (Chair of the Supervisory Board), Harald A. Summa (Member of the Supervisory Board), Christian Reuter (CSO and Board Member) and Rudolf van Megen (Member of the Supervisory Board)

Two years after its launch, the DE-CIX “Channel Alliance Partner Programme” continues to be successful and reflects growth in all areas. In the “Channel Alliance Partner Programme”, DE-CIX supports system integrators, managed service providers and IT consulting companies in meeting the interconnection needs of enterprise customers. Companies can either connect to DE-CIX directly with their own infrastructure or through the DE-CIX Partner Programme.

The number of partnerships doubled in 2022 compared to the previous year. In addition, an agreement was signed with one of the leading North American master agents, Upstack. As part of the programme, over 20 partnerships have been signed to actively sell Microsoft Azure Peering Service (MAPS) in EMEA, North America, India and Southeast Asia. The top three DE-CIX resellers in 2022 were Core-Backbone, GlobeNET (now V.tal) and Console Connect (by PCCW).

DE-CIX’s modern cloud-focused interconnection services, such as DirectCLOUD, MAPS and the Cloud ROUTER (launched in March 2023), as well as the Closed User Group (CUG) and InterconnectionFLEX, are tailored to companies of different sizes. More and more global companies need connectivity on different continents, designed for their own specific use cases, running on DE-CIX’s global interconnection platforms and local networks, as well as being easy, fast and secure to implement.

Together with reliable partners, DE-CIX is able to serve these needs. As a result, DE-CIX has been able to increase its connectivity capacity to cloud service providers via the DE-CIX Cloud Exchange by 500 per cent to more than 1,500 Gbits in 2022 by growing and building cloud on-ramps in additional data centres.

2022 was a year of growth and records for DE-CIX around the globe. A key driver was the increasing demand for higher customer bandwidth across the global ecosystem. For example, the connected customer capacity of DE-CIX’s global platforms increased by almost a third (29 per cent). The number of connected 100GE ports grew by 30 per cent globally in 2022, while 400GE ports gained commercial traction during the year, with 12 ports coming online at DE-CIX Frankfurt by the end of the year.

A number of DE-CIX sites set new records for peak traffic in 2022: The DE-CIX IXs in New York, Madrid and Mumbai all surpassed the magic mark of 1 Terabit per second (Tbit/s) peak traffic. In addition, DE-CIX Dallas almost doubled its peak data throughput, passing the 500 Gigabit per second (Gbit/s) mark and finishing the year with 625 Gbit/s. UAE-IX powered by DE-CIX in Dubai, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in November 2022, saw peak traffic increase to almost 400 Gbit/s in the same month. Europe’s largest Internet Exchange DE-CIX Frankfurt continued to skyrocket, ending the year with a peak traffic record of 14.4 Tbit/s.

DE-CIX North America not only saw growth in existing IXs in 2022, but also celebrated the opening of new sites. Following its initial announcement in 2021, DE-CIX Phoenix (Arizona) became ready for service in March 2022. In addition, the DE-CIX in Richmond (Virginia) was officially inaugurated at the beginning of November.

With strong growth in customer demand, the North American DE-CIX ecosystem saw a 46 per cent increase in 100GE port bookings. Total capacity of connected customers increased by 30 per cent.

DE-CIX Dallas, the largest carrier and data centre neutral Internet Exchange in the southwestern US, nearly doubled its traffic throughput in 2022, passing the 500 Gbit/s mark and finishing the year with peak traffic of 625 Gbit/s. DE-CIX New York – the largest carrier and data centre neutral Internet exchange on the East Coast –passed the 1 Tbit/s peak traffic threshold (an increase of 40 per cent in 2022), reaching 1.3 Tbit/s of throughput at peak times late in the year. In addition, DE-CIX New York recorded a growth in customer capacity of 26 per cent.

2022 was also a year full of highlights for the DE-CIX Southern Europe region. Counting Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Marseille and Palermo, DE-CIX operates five Internet Exchanges in the region, forming the largest neutral interconnection ecosystem in Southern Europe, with 470 connected networks in 15 data centres. Established in 2016, DE-CIX Madrid celebrated a new record peak throughput of 1 Tbit/s in early September 2022. This represents an increase of almost 140 per cent since the beginning of 2020. In its entirety, DE-CIX’s Internet Exchanges in Southern Europe recorded a 32 per cent increase in customer bandwidth in 2022. The number of 100GE ports across the regional ecosystem grew by 54 per cent.

DE-CIX Southern Europe is also growing beyond the region, strengthening relationships and connections with other continents. In 2022, for example, DE-CIX and submarine cable operator Ellalink sealed their partnership, announced back in 2021, to provide enhanced connectivity between Southern Europe and South America. On the occasion of the first anniversary of DE-CIX Barcelona, a strategic partnership was also signed with AFR-IX telecom. Through this agreement, Barcelona will become a new supplementary gateway for data traffic between Europe and Africa.

DE-CIX Frankfurt is the largest and most important Internet Exchange in Europe, based on network density and data traffic. In 2022, DE-CIX Frankfurt recorded four new traffic peaks in a row: in February, the IX exceeded the 11 Tbit/s mark, in August 12 Tbit/s, in September 13 Tbit/s and in December 14 Tbit/s. This marks a 33 per cent increase in peak traffic in the digital capital Frankfurt in the course of just one year. In total, 34 exabytes of data were exchanged at DE-CIX Frankfurt in 2022. In particular, enterprise connectivity to the cloud was a key growth spurt for DE-CIX in Germany, with the number of cloud connections increasing by 23 per cent year-on-year.

Frankfurt was not the only German location to experience growth and innovation in 2022. All regional DE-CIX Exchanges registered a growing demand for bandwidth and thus an increasing number of booked 100GE ports. For example, the connected customer capacity of DE-CIX Munich increased by 76 per cent. DE-CIX Dusseldorf and DE-CIX Hamburg recorded growths of 54 per cent and 30 per cent respectively in the provision of 100GE ports.

To meet the growing demand for regional interconnection, DE-CIX expanded into a new region in Germany with the opening of DE-CIX Leipzig, the first Internet Exchange for the German federal states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.

To better handle the ongoing and upcoming growth and to future-proof the interconnection platform, DE-CIX invested in new hardware during 2022. Together with Nokia, DE-CIX upgraded the award-winning DE-CIX Apollon platform to the high-quality 800GE access technology. With the implementation of new 800GE-capable Nokia line cards, DE-CIX is responding to the steadily growing customer demand for higher bandwidths to access the Frankfurt IX, making DE-CIX Frankfurt the first Internet Exchange worldwide to be 800GE-capable.

In 2022, its seventh year of operation, DE-CIX Istanbul continued its growth as a neutral interconnection and cloud exchange for Internet service providers, content service providers, networks and enterprises of all sizes from Turkey, the Caucasus region and the Middle East. The Internet Exchange on the Bosporus has established itself as a gateway between the Middle East and Europe, providing access to both the DE-CIX global interconnection ecosystem and the DE-CIX Cloud Exchange with its associated DirectCLOUD ecosystem.

In 2022, there was an increased demand for high bandwidth connections, resulting in a significant growth rate of 31 per cent in the number of bookings of 100GE ports. In addition, the exchange saw a 27 per cent increase in peak traffic and is now moving towards 400 Gbit/s. The total capacity of connected customers also grew by 25 per cent. The number of connected customers increased by 20 per cent.

UAE-IX powered by DE-CIX celebrated its tenth anniversary

The year 2022 was a special year for the UAE-IX powered by DE-CIX. In November, the first and now leading carrier and data centre neutral Internet Exchange in the Middle East celebrated its tenth anniversary. Since its inception in 2012, the exchange has seen a steady double-digit annual growth rate. Over the past 10 years, an extensive digital ecosystem has developed around UAE-IX, helping to establish Dubai as a major international Internet hub and main connectivity centre for the Gulf Coordination Council (GCC) region. In this context, DE-CIX published a study on the development of the Dubai Internet Hub.

The exchange recorded a significant 89 per cent increase in 100GE ports in 2022. The total connected customer capacity grew by 53 per cent. Data throughput at peak times also increased by 39 per cent year-on-year. By the end of 2022, the exchange reached an all-time high of 392 Gbit/s.

Abou Moustafa, Vice President Enterprise Business datamena/du (left) and DE-CIX CEO Ivo Ivanov at the tenth anniversary celebrations of UAE-IX.

DE-CIX’s carrier and data centre neutral IXs in India in the cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai continued their success story in 2022. DE-CIX in the Indian financial metropolis of Mumbai is not only the largest Internet Exchange in India, but also in the Asia-Pacific region. However, growth and demand for interconnection services are not limited to Mumbai: In March 2022, a new milestone was reached with over 500 connected networks across the DE-CIX India’s four Internet Exchanges.

To further drive the growth of the DE-CIX ecosystem in India in 2022, more partnerships were announced: At the beginning of the year, Lightstorm, India’s first carrier-neutral network infrastructure platform, announced a partnership with DE-CIX. In February 2022, DE-CIX India established a new point-of-presence (PoP) at Yotta’s award-winning NM1 data centre in Panvel, near Mumbai, offering customers at the data centre and the western India region a variety of interconnection services, with the added advantage of reduced latency. In late 2022, DE-CIX India and AAACloud, a leading provider of Internet services in India, announced a reseller partnership. With this partnership, AAACloud will be able to sell DE-CIX’s interconnection services across its Pan-Indian customer base.

The DE-CIX Asia platform is the first distributed Internet Exchange in Southeast Asia and includes Internet Exchanges in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru and Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei. In 2022, DE-CIX Malaysia started planning to further grow its footprint across the country. The DE-CIX Asia distributed interconnection platform saw an overall growth of 31 per cent in terms of connected networks. Connected customer capacity increased by 38 per cent.

A cooperation with GetaFIX, the largest neutral Internet Exchange in the Philippines, was launched in 2022. The partnership adds more than 40 networks to DE-CIX Asia’s interconnection platform and enables more than 100 connected customers to seamlessly interconnect between the Singaporean, Malaysian, Philippine and Brunei markets. This includes both peering services and the DE-CIX enterprise service DirectCLOUD. In 2022, DE-CIX signed the first DirectCLOUD partner from the Southeast Asian region, BasicBrix, an IT and cloud solutions provider headquartered in Singapore.. DE-CIX also further enhanced connectivity to the Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS clouds with new on-ramps across various markets. DE-CIX Asia will continue its growth trajectory by establishing strategic and long-term partnerships, and is evaluating options for acquisitions in the region.

Further information is available at: http://www.de-cix.net/.