Global Interconnectivity Update�Are we Experiencing Global Slowdown? (Nah)

Patrick Christian

GPF Denver

April, 2025

What we’ll cover

• Global network trends – signs of a slowdown?
• International bandwidth slowing
• Sub cable launches slowing
• Data center rollout down
• Cloud data center deployment dropping
• What about regional trends – signs of growth?
• Regions bucking the global trend
• Data center and bandwidth growth
• Africa & Asia…
• Future growth? What’s in the works? What’s up with AI
• Submarine cable growth, DC growth? But where?
• Market connectivity scores by Metro
• Current market scorecard
• What metros are looking good for future growth

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Global Trends – Going Down?

Int’l used bandwidth global growth

Source: TeleGeography, Transport Networks

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Fewer cloud regions launched in 2024

Source: TeleGeography, Cloud & WAN

Lowest since pre-2014

Peak pre-Covid

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Data center growth

Source: TeleGeography, Data Center Research

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Submarine cable investment

• Content localization

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• Sub cable disruptions in system deployment

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• Geopolitical, supply chain

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• Phase of network buildout

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Source: TeleGeography, Transport Networks

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Regional Hub Changes & Intra-Regional Growth

Global interregional routes, 2024

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Source: TeleGeography, IP Networks

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United States as a hub

• Top 3: Latin America, Oceania (Australia), Asia

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• Latam connectivity has hovered around 80% for the past 10 years

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• Latam was closer to 85% 10 yrs ago now nearing 75%

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• Australia and Asia have dropped from 70% and 40%, respectively, to below 50% and 20% as intra-regional and closer inter-regional connectivity grows

Source: TeleGeography, IP Networks

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Latam top international IP routes

• Majority of int’l IP capacity still connects to U.S.

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• 74% but down from 86% a decade ago

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• Largest routes from Brazil & Mexico to U.S. (>40T)

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• Neither Mexico nor Brazil act as a hub for Latam – mostly Miami

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• Some of the fastest growing routes are now intra-latam

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Source: TeleGeography, IP Networks

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Top countries int’l IP capacity in Latam

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Source: TeleGeography, IP Networks

~25%

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Int’l IP capacity connected to Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia

Brazil

Mexico

Chile

Colombia

Source: TeleGeography, IP Networks

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Europe as a hub

• Top 3: North Africa, Middle East then Sub-Saharan Africa
• Total Africa-Europe connectivity has hovered around 80% for the past 5 years
• North Africa’s international connectivity is almost 100% to Europe
• While Sub-Saharan Africa’s share of connectivity to Europe has dropped to 60%

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Source: TeleGeography, IP Networks

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Connecting to Europe�

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Major International Internet Routes in Africa, 2024

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Source: TeleGeography, IP Networks

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Top 10 countries int’l IP capacity in Africa

Three groups:

• North African + ZA – a lot of int’l capacity to Europe
• Second group - major hubs connecting Europe and Africa
• Third group – growing hubs for sub-Saharan Africa + Tunisia

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Source: TeleGeography, IP Networks

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Int’l IP capacity connected to ZA, Kenya, Nigeria & DRC

South Africa

Kenya

Nigeria

DRC

Source: TeleGeography, IP Networks

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APAC routes, 2024

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• Majority of int’l connectivity stays in the region (62% Asia-Asia)

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• Most of the rest of int’l connectivity is split between U.S. & Europe (17% each)

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• Pre-2010 more that half of int’l connectivity was to the U.S. has slowly declined since then

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• Largest route is now intra-Asian: Singapore-Indonesia (40Tbps)

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• Japan-U.S. & China-U.S. next largest (23Tbps & 21Tbps)

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Top 10 countries int’l IP capacity in Asia

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Source: TeleGeography, IP Networks

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Int’l IP capacity connected to Singapore, China, Japan & Indonesia

Singapore

China

Japan

Indonesia

Source: TeleGeography, IP Networks

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In the Pipe

Cloud regions and subcable builds

Existing + Planned Cables and Cloud Data Centers

Source: TeleGeography’s Cloud and WAN

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Fewer cloud regions launched in 2024

Source: TeleGeography, Cloud & WAN

Peak pre-Covid

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Planned data center builds (2025-2030)

• Global total of 400 planned DCs in the next 4 years

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• Over half of these to be built in Asia and Europe

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Source: Data Center Research, Transport Networks

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New Data Center Capacity 2022-2024

Source: TeleGeography, Data Center Research

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Submarine cable investment

• $13b forecast for 2025-2027

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• Content providers (ownership economics)

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• Route diversity

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• New routes in new geographic corridors

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• Geopolitical issues

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Source: TeleGeography, Transport Networks

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Planned submarine cable builds

• Global total of 90 planned cables in the next 4 years

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• Primarily 1/3 in Asia and Europe

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• Regions with strong DC and cloud infrastructure growth

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Source: TeleGeography, Transport Networks

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Market Connectivity Score

The Market Connectivity �Score can help

Source: TeleGeography’s Data Center Research Service

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• This tool captures 43 distinct market health metrics to help users diagnose the competitiveness of 3,000 global network and data center markets.

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Some markets to compare

Select High-Growth Data Center Markets, 2020-2024

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Source: TeleGeography’s Data Center Research Service

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• Looking at a sampling of fast-growth data center markets

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• Each has more than 1 million square feet of space in operation and more than 10% CAGR growth

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Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur

• Comparable rankings and similar strengths and weaknesses

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• Jakarta has stronger IX market with 7x the local peering membership of KL

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• KL has advantage of more competitive network pricing

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JK has more than 700 local peers

IPT:

JK 2x the weighted median of KL

Source: TeleGeography’s Data Center Research Service

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Berlin and Madrid

• Madrid has more cloud deployments and a higher share of clean power

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• But Berlin is a fast-growing data center market with more than 10 sites in the near pipeline

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MAD: 12 onramps, 5 regions, 1 planned

MAD: 94% of overall capacity is clean power

Source: TeleGeography’s Data Center Research Service

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Bogota and Buenos Aires

• Bogota has more clean power planned and higher DC and IX scores as well as higher local access score – subscribers

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• Buenos Aires has slightly higher cloud infra and similar governance and pricing scores

Source: TeleGeography’s Data Center Research Service

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Strong network but lack of cloud…

• Lisbon directly connects with more than 40 international cities and has 13 subsea cables…

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• Budapest has more than 35 Tbps of international internet capacity…

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• Fortaleza has over 10 Tbps of international internet capacity and 10 subsea cables in service…

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• But local cloud provisioning in all of these locations is limited to a few onramps at most

Transport and Cloud Market Connectivity Scores, Select Markets

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Source: TeleGeography’s Data Center Research Service

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Strong IX but lack of DC space…

• Each market has:
• multiple exchanges
• hundreds of ASNs
• high concentration of international ASNs…

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• …but relatively little data center capacity

IX and Data Center Scores, Select Markets

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Source: TeleGeography’s Data Center Research Service

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And some key markets with no major clean power plans in the pipeline…

• APAC is home to several of the strongest connectivity markets with the weakest scores for clean power provisioning

Market Connectivity Scores, Select Markets

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Source: TeleGeography’s Data Center Research Service

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www.telegeography.com

Take Aways

• Global slowdown?
• While 2023-2024 global growth (intl used and ip bw) & declined or was flat, regionally growth is on the upswing

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• Less dependency on the U.S. & Europe
• Intra-regional routes and DC growth in emerging markets
• Doesn’t mean connectivity to U.S. & Europe is declining

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• Lots of infrastructure in the pipe
• 400 DCs, 40 cloud regions 90 sub cables…
• Big growth in Asia and Europe but Latam and Africa on the upswing

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• Finally…
• Content providers continue to expand frontiers
• Biggest ongoing concern in the data center market will be the availability of power and space to develop further in key markets
• Geopolitical tensions will affect the timing and location of subsea cable deployments

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Have you seen the Cloud Infrastructure Map yet?

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https://www.cloudinfrastructuremap.com

https://www.submarinecablemap.com

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(yeah, you know this one)

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Thank you!

Senior Research Manager

Patrick Christian

pchristian@telegeography.com