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Oct 20, 2019
DUBAI, UAE – October 20, 2019 – The latest Global Interconnection Index (GXI), an annual market study published by Equinix, predicts private connectivity at the edge will grow by 51% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), and exceed a total bandwidth capacity of more than 13,300 Tbps, equivalent to 53 zettabytes of data exchanged annually. This is enough to support every person on earth simultaneously downloading a complete season of Game of Thrones in ultra-high definition resolution in less than a single day.
The GXI market study finds interconnection bandwidth – the capacity for direct and private traffic exchange between key business partners – is an essential component to digital business and validates that to compete in the digital economy, companies must address growing data volumes and increasing data exchange velocity across a rising number of clouds and business ecosystems. In fact, according to a separate independent survey commissioned by Equinix of more than 2,450 global senior IT professionals, almost half (48%) of global IT decision-makers believe interconnection is a key facilitator of digital transformation.
The independent survey also reveals that in the UAE, 7 out of 10 (70%) IT decision-makers think interconnection is a key facilitator of digital transformation, with over two-thirds (68%) of IT decision-makers using interconnection to reduce the cost of connectivity. The survey also touches upon the priorities of UAE organisations that dictate their technology strategies. According to the findings, over three-quarters (77%) of IT decision-makers consider improving cybersecurity as a top priority for their organisation’s technology strategy, followed by 73% who consider improving customer/user experience to be the priority.
“People, software and machines are creating and consuming data faster and in all the places where we work, play, and live,” said Rick Villars, Research Vice President, Datacenter & Cloud, IDC. “The significant increase in data created, aggregated and analyzed in these new locations is contributing to a major shift away from deploying IT in traditional corporate data centers. Enterprises need access to robust, modern data center facilities near the edge locations where businesses want to deploy dedicated infrastructure and interconnect to the increasing number of clouds, customers and partners that are at the core of digital transformation efforts.”
Strong data compliance regulations across EMEA are unlocking data exchange and growth of interconnection bandwidth in Healthcare & Life Sciences, Government & Education, and Business & Professional Services. This is leading Europe (51% CAGR) to overtake North America (46% CAGR) in the race to digital growth. Latin America is leading the charge with a 63% CAGR, with Asia-Pacific not far behind (56% CAGR). When asked about moving functions to the cloud, over three-quarters (76%) of UAE IT decision-makers think their organisation will move more functions to the cloud, hoping that the transition will occur in the next 12 months. Two-thirds (66%) of IT decision-makers plan on moving databases onto the cloud.
Key Findings:
The GXI Vol. 3 delivers insights by tracking, measuring and forecasting growth in interconnection bandwidth—the total capacity provisioned to privately and directly exchange traffic, with a diverse set of partners and providers, at distributed IT exchange points inside carrier-neutral colocation data centers. The GXI finds:
The ability to exchange large volumes of data through interconnection is essential to compete in the digital economy
Distance is the biggest performance killer for digital business
Leading businesses are gaining competitive advantage using a combination of key interconnection deployment models
Quotes:
“As enterprises embrace the imperative of digital transformation, they increasingly adopt multiple cloud-based applications to meet their objectives. This places pressure on the network to deliver a fast and secure application experience to users located anywhere in the world. With both applications and networks becoming more distributed, enterprises today will continue to require a low-latency, interconnected architecture to securely connect end users with business-critical applications.”
“Europe’s predicted CAGR of 51%, illustrates the fact that enterprises across the continent are increasingly using new and innovative ways of interconnecting with their customers and partners, to stay relevant and gain a competitive advantage. In line with this, results from our independent survey found the EMEA region has the largest proportion of organisations – at 63% – using interconnection to support their expansion into new regions, countries or metros. This shows interconnection is a critical business asset for companies increasingly looking to operate across borders and in doing so, broaden customer bases”.
“With a constant need to connect, grow and expand, enterprises today are adopting digital transformation like never before. They are deploying digital solutions at scale to produce better business outcomes and we see interconnection as a critical component to supporting business interactions at the digital edge.”
“For a multinational corporate like us that has distributed users in four continents, investing in enhancing our business models with speed, stability, security, scalability takes top priority. Hence, connecting with a global supply chain ecosystem such as Equinix’s interconnection platform, offers the ideal gateway. By partnering with Equinix, we have been able to save costs, enhance productivity but also create real value for our customers and partners.”
“The trend of digital transformation is revolutionizing the MENA market, urging businesses to take innovative approaches such as cloud adoption. One of the ways businesses can use the cloud more securely is through direct, dedicated interconnections between network and cloud providers and users and data, bypassing the hacking and performance risks of the public internet. At Equinix, we see multi-cloud convergence hitting a tipping point and the cloud as a major catalyst for changing how enterprises will do business in the emerging global digital economy. As the global report shows, interconnection is key to ensure full digital transformation and for this, businesses will need to grow their interconnection bandwidth capacity (data exchange capacity). Every MENA business must understand and leverage Interconnection Bandwidth to compete in the digital age. This will require a regional drive among IT chiefs to re-architect their companies’ IT platforms.”
About the Global Interconnection Index (GXI)
The Global Interconnection Index, published annually by Equinix, delivers insights that drive digital business advantage by tracking, measuring and forecasting growth in interconnection bandwidth—the total capacity provisioned to privately and directly exchange traffic with a diverse set of counterparties and providers at distributed IT exchange points. The Global Interconnection Index is the industry’s only market study that projects how interconnection bandwidth growth will unfold through 2022. The report serves as a market baseline that analyzes the deployment profile of thousands of ecosystem participants using carrier-neutral colocation data center providers globally. This data was combined with local and regional market data (including macroeconomic trends, market demographics and industry concentrations) to form a weighted demand multiplier to assist in predicting growth and assess impact on digital business transformation. A detailed methodology description is included in the Global Interconnection Index.
About the Equinix independent survey
As part of a separate independent study commissioned by Equinix, APCO Insight surveyed 2,485 IT decision-makers from a diverse enterprise set across North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. 1,348 of those surveyed are based in EMEA, with 103 of those based in the UAE. Respondents were selected for participation from Dynata’s online panel. The survey was conducted online between August 1-16, 2019.
Additional Resources
About Equinix
Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX) connects the world's leading businesses to their customers, employees and partners inside the most-interconnected data centers. On this global platform for digital business, companies come together across more than 50 markets on five continents to reach everywhere, interconnect everyone and integrate everything they need to create their digital futures. www.equinix.com.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from expectations discussed in such forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, the challenges of acquiring, operating and constructing IBX data centers and developing, deploying and delivering Equinix services; unanticipated costs or difficulties relating to the integration of companies we have acquired or will acquire into Equinix; a failure to receive significant revenue from customers in recently built out or acquired data centers; failure to complete any financing arrangements contemplated from time to time; competition from existing and new competitors; the ability to generate sufficient cash flow or otherwise obtain funds to repay new or outstanding indebtedness; the loss or decline in business from our key customers; and other risks described from time to time in Equinix filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular, see recent Equinix quarterly and annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies of which are available upon request from Equinix. Equinix does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.
For further information: Equinix Press Contact (EMEA) Liam Rose +44 (0) 207 618 9602 liam.rose@eu.equinix.com Edelman PR Agency Amey Borkar +971 55 104 7854 amey.borkar@edelman.com