Major macro trends are driving today’s transformation challenges
Five trends are impacting today’s digital transformation challenges, requiring interconnection as a solution.
Moving to fully digitised services is now more crucial than ever
As new demand for distributed digital engagement rises, businesses need to solve remote workforce, network efficiency and workflow latency issues.

Businesses need wider distribution of services to enhance local interaction
As population centres grow, businesses will have greater demands for distributed compute, and will need to manage the complexities of localisation.

Cyberthreats are accelerating
As the number of user devices and cloud resources increases, organisations must solve for distributed security risks.

Growth of localised data is outpacing the ability to manage it
A majority of the world’s ever-increasing data volumes are not being leveraged for actionable insights.

Connectivity to multiple ecosystems is key to growth and innovation
API-driven application exchange issues, real-time engagement, multiparty workflows and dynamic service chains require on-demand connectivity to a variety of ecosystems at the lowest latency.

5 Trends to Build a Strong Digital Foundation
Leverage digital interconnection on a secure, agile global business platform and solve your digital transformation challenges.

The digital economy is not dependent on the physical economy
The GXI predicts interconnection bandwidth – the total capacity provisioned to privately and directly exchange traffic – to grow, even as the overall economy slows down. This shows that digital economy growth is not directly tied to the physical economy and cannot be estimated based on traditional economic trends (such as the GDP).
Get the Forecast InsightsInterconnection bandwidth continues to grow at a robust 45% CAGR
Global interconnection bandwidth is forecast to grow at a 45% CAGR – translating to 16,300+ terabits per second (Tbps).


North America leads globally, and service providers lead the growth, showing a greater than 4x increase in interconnection bandwidth.


In Asia-Pacific, Cloud & IT Services is forecast to have the largest growth of any region in this sector. Healthcare & Life Sciences and Government & Education both show an acceleration in interconnection bandwidth adoption as both industries prioritise digital initiatives.


Europe is predicted to grow at a steady rate as Telecommunications and Cloud & IT Services contribute to 54% of the interconnection bandwidth growth, outpacing many industries.


Latin America is predicted to grow at an impressive rate. Content & Digital Media is expected to grow at a 62% CAGR, making it the highest growth rate of any sector in any region.


Industries are shifting gears to adapt to global change
As digitisation increases, installed capacities are forecast to grow at a tremendous rate for industries across regions.

Service provider interconnection bandwidth soars to meet demands
Rapidly shifting requirements drive service provider growth to meet infrastructure needs and rising demands from enterprises.

Enterprises to accelerate growth over the next four years
Healthcare & Life Sciences and Government & Education lead the traditional enterprises in their interconnection bandwidth growth rate as public and private initiatives drive a combined 47% CAGR. This group is forecast to experience 4x the growth over the next four years as it adopts service provider best practices for digital infrastructure deployment.
YoY growth rate by 2023

Service providers growth surges as new forces impact traditional business
Service providers, covering sectors like Telecommunications, Cloud & IT Services and Content & Digital Media, have digital traffic flows as a primary element of their business model. Their surplus network capacities are meeting their needs as well as supporting enterprises in building out digital workflows. These fully digitised companies are predicted to experience a 50% CAGR, driven by the increased demands by enterprises at the edge and a requirement to support initiatives like 5G, AI and Edge Computing.
Growth over the next four years
Ecosystem density shifts as organisations mature
Enterprises and service providers are leveraging interconnection to support these processes by connecting to strategic ecosystems, both in the cloud and at the edge.
Interconnection to network providers – 67% of ecosystem connectivity demand from 2019-2023
Organisations interconnecting to network providers shifts from 73% of all interconnection use cases to 67% as organisations mature and demand for additional use cases increases.

Interconnection to Cloud & IT Providers – 16% of ecosystem connectivity demand by 2023
Interconnecting multiple Cloud & IT Providers across multiple locations and cloud regions represents the fastest growing use case of interconnection bandwidth, growing to 16% of ecosystem demand by 2023.

Interconnection to Financial Services Providers, Payments, Content Providers and Supply Partners – remaining 17% of ecosystem connectivity demand
Interconnecting digital business partners for Financial Services Providers, Payments, Content Providers and Supply Partners integration makes up the remainder of interconnection bandwidth use cases (17%).

See Where Growth Is Happening
Get an in-depth analysis of what’s happening across the global interconnection landscape in the new digital economy.

Stay competitive – How digital leaders are taking action
The GXI identifies three typical paths that innovative organisations and digital leaders take by transforming through a five-step process to achieve an end state of digital-readiness. Benchmark your organisation.
Benchmark Your EnterpriseNetwork optimisation
Transform WAN architecture by removing the distance through an initial hub deployment. Expand capabilities to the edge and optimise last-mile connectivity.
Hybrid Multicloud
Connect to multiple clouds in strategic locations with high concentrations of cloud and network providers and establish a second hub for business continuity. Scale capability across regions.
Distributed Security
Distribute secure infrastructure and edge services to support DDOS/WAF, CASB, SASE and other capabilities across hubs needed to locally secure digital interaction
Distributed Data
Deploy edge computing to support AI and machine learning solutions for local analytics of large pools of data. Establish cloud adjacent data infrastructure to leverage cloud analytics and ecosystem exchange.
Application Exchange
Build out digital infrastructure at strategic exchange points for real-time participation in data marketplaces, industry exchanges and B2B real-time processing.
Get on the fast track with an infrastructure built for competitive advantage
Digital leaders are staying ahead by using a digital infrastructure platform.
All the Right Places
Place digital infrastructure anywhere through a network of interconnected data centres strategically located to support the densest ecosystems.
All the Right Partners
Create on-demand connections to everything to succeed in the world’s most dynamic business ecosystems.
All the Right Possibilities
Gain agility, speed and confidence to consistently scale infrastructure and adapt to whatever is next.
Build Your Digital Advantage
Bring together and interconnect the foundational infrastructure that powers your success. Be ready for whatever is next with the world’s digital infrastructure company.
Related resources
View all resources-
Analyst report
Gartner - Data Centres are Morphing with Evolving Infrastructure Strategy
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Analyst report
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View our past GXI Reports