{"id":33935,"date":"2026-07-22T15:45:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lacnic.net\/?p=33935"},"modified":"2026-07-22T16:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:03:13","slug":"peering-capacity-at-public-internet-exchanges-what-the-data-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lacnic.net\/en\/peering-capacity-at-public-internet-exchanges-what-the-data-reveals\/","title":{"rendered":"Peering Capacity at Public Internet Exchanges: What the Data Reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Gael Hernandez<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was originally published on <\/em>RIPE Labs<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This study delivers data-rich insights into the decisions made by the most IXP-connected CDN, cloud and content networks, analysing their strategies both individually and collectively as a group that exerts significant influence on the global interconnection landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The distribution of CDN, cloud and content provider capacity across Internet Exchanges (IXPs) provides a fascinating lens into the physical infrastructure of the Internet and public peering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While hyperscalers and CDNs increasingly deploy private backbone infrastructure, public peering remains a critical mechanism for regional traffic distribution, cache efficiency, eyeball reach, and resilience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This study aggregates the port capacity of ten of the most IXP-interconnected CDN, cloud and content networks<\/a> and ranks IXPs by total capacity. This ranking provides insights into the choices made by the networks, on an individual basis but also collectively as a group of CDN, cloud and content providers with significant influence in the global interconnection ecosystem. The networks covered are Akamai, Meta, Amazon, Hurricane Electric, Cloudflare, Fastly, Microsoft, Google, Netflix and Bytedance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The limitations of this analysis are obvious: presence at exchanges could be incorrect or port capacity could be out of date, for instance. However, most of the networks under analysis depend heavily on PeeringDB automation. This gives the report a relatively high level of confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a glance<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The data highlights the enormous scale at which major CDNs, cloud, and content providers participate in public Internet exchange ecosystems globally. Sourced from PeeringDB<\/a>, the table below ranks the networks with the largest deployed port capacity at IXPs, illustrating how deeply integrated these operators are within the global Internet infrastructure. It also shows the number of exchanges they participate in (IX count) and the number of ports (Port count).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Akamai leads with 79 Tbps of deployed public peering capacity across 248 exchanges, reinforcing its long-standing strategy of distributing content as close as possible to end users. Meta follows closely with 69.4 Tbps, despite being present at fewer exchanges, indicating a strategy focused on very high-capacity deployments at key metros. Amazon ranks third with 51.2 Tbps, reflecting the growing importance of AWS and cloud-driven traffic flows at IXPs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cloudflare stands out as the most broadly connected network in the dataset, participating in 352 exchanges worldwide, while Hurricane Electric (the only non-CDN network in the benchmark) maintains the second largest exchange footprint overall with connectivity to 333 IXPs. Fastly, Microsoft, Google, and Netflix also show substantial global peering presence, highlighting the continued importance of public interconnection for large-scale content delivery, cloud services, and traffic localisation. Lastly ByteDance shows its limited footprint but high capacity deployed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the data demonstrates that public peering remains a critical component of their Internet architecture, even for hyperscale operators with extensive private backbone infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysis: Global Observations<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The data reveals several notable geographic and strategic patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top three exchanges globally are not surprising – although their order may be. IX.br Sao Paulo<\/a>, DE-CIX Frankfurt<\/a> and Equinix Singapore<\/a> are the exchanges with the largest deployed peering capacity. Note that Sao Paulo is also the exchange with the highest number of participants – 1861 according to PeeringDB \u2013 and peak\/average traffic of 31Tbps\/18Tbps according to their own statistics<\/a>. DE-CIX Frankfurt is the largest European exchange by participant count (1017 networks), and its peak\/average traffic is 18Tbps\/12Tbps<\/a>. Finally, Equinix Singapore with a more modest 465 participants have a peak\/average traffic of 20Tbps\/14Tbps<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What stands out most is the scale gap between the first and second ranked exchanges: from 22.8 Tbps down to 11 Tbps, a drop of more than 50%. This suggests an exceptional level of traffic gravity and aggregation at the leading exchange, reinforcing the \u201cwinner-takes-most\u201d dynamics often observed in Internet interconnection ecosystems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of the more unexpected findings is the dominance of Brazil. Three Brazilian exchanges appear within the global top six, highlighting the maturity of Brazil\u2019s domestic interconnection ecosystem and the success of IX.br in driving local traffic exchange at massive scale. This reflects several structural advantages: a large domestic Internet population, strong local content consumption and an active public peering culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another notable trend is the limited presence of commercial colocation-led exchanges in the top 30 list, with Equinix taking five positions in the global top 20 for exchanges in Singapore, Chicago, Ashburn, Dallas and Hong Kong. The only other two IX ran by a colocation provider are Any2 West by Coresite and Digital Realty Atlanta. This highlights the increasing convergence between data centre ecosystems and Internet exchange infrastructure. Large CDNs increasingly optimise deployment by colocating peering, compute, caching, and cloud interconnection within the same metro facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite regional differences, several exchanges have emerged as universally important aggregation hubs. Every CDN and content provider analysed is present in the following five exchanges:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IX.br Sao Paulo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DE-CIX Frankfurt<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equinix Singapore<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BBIX Tokyo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

IX.br Rio de Janeiro<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These exchanges have effectively become mandatory interconnection points for global content distribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a geographic perspective, the top 30 exchanges are distributed as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n