Colt targets crypto traders with low-latency connectivity

Explosion in AI interest

Beyond capital markets, Mizutani noted that the explosion in AI interest is creating a demand for secure, high-performance connectivity. He added that Colt is seeing “double-digit growth” in the number of enterprise customers seeking private connections to hyperscalers to support their AI workloads.

These customers are looking to build generative AI models and AI agents on top of highly sensitive internal data, making public internet connections a non-starter from a security and governance perspective. “Having a dedicated connection into a public cloud environment ring-fenced for a specific company is a trend we are seeing a lot in the APAC market,” said Mizutani.

In terms of data security, Colt is also looking to address the threat of quantum computing, which could retroactively decrypt sensitive data that is captured today. Earlier this year, Colt completed a quantum-secured encryption trial across its optical wave network and is developing services to help enterprises future-proof their data in transit.

APAC growth

The launch of the ULL DCA service is part of Colt’s broader growth strategy in the APAC region, where the company is investing heavily to support hyperscaler datacentre buildouts and enterprise demand.

“We’ve just expanded our coverage into six countries in Southeast Asia last year, and we’ve started to provide services into Sydney with our own metro connectivity,” said Mizutani.

The company has also expanded its network into Kyushu, Japan, a region that has been attracting more datacentre investments due to the higher availability of nuclear power.

He said Colt’s key differentiator is its position as a neutral supplier of global connectivity. Unlike national incumbents, Colt can select the optimal network path for customers who need consistent, low-latency performance across multiple countries.

“Unlike Singtel, we don’t own full connectivity in Singapore, or like NTT do in Japan, but we have the capability to pick and choose the best provider in terms of latency and capacity,” said Mizutani. “Our clients want to deploy across different countries in APAC, and they want to source from the best providers in each location. That’s what we are doing to support them.”

This “best-of-breed” approach, combined with the global scale gained from its $1.8bn acquisition of Lumen’s business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, allows Colt to offer comprehensive global coverage. “There’s no other provider that has that much on-net coverage across the world, and that has significant impact on [lowering] the overall cost for customers,” he said.

With more datacentres being built at greenfield sites outside core city areas where there’s more land and power, Mizutani said Colt is also assessing opportunities to extend its network to those sites, such as the presence of anchor datacentre tenants that can commit to using its connectivity services.