DE-CIX expands New York metro connectivity with architecture upgrades

As traffic patterns evolve and artificial intelligence (AI) workloads demand more distributed infrastructure, and looking to boost the third largest Internet Exchange (IX) on the American continent, operator DE-CIX has completed a major upgrade to its New York metro platform to a quad-node network architecture, with two core nodes in New York City and two in New Jersey.

Founded in 1995, DE-CIX offers interconnection services in 60 locations in Europe, Africa, North and South America, the Middle East and Asia. Accessible from datacentres in more than 600 cities worldwide, it connects network operators (carriers), internet service providers (ISPs), content providers and enterprise networks from more than 100 countries, and offers peering, cloud and other interconnection services.

The youngest IX in North America’s top five, DE-CIX New York is leading  largest Internet Exchange in the US and the number one in the Northeast, as well as the largest neutral IX on the Eastern seaboard. It is OIX-1 certified and carrier and datacentre-neutral. OIX is a nonprofit that develops open standards and decision-making frameworks to help operators, policymakers and investors make smarter choices about digital infrastructure.

When DE-CIX first entered the New York market more than a decade ago, a total of only 20 datacentre facilities were being served by IXs across the entire metro. DE-CIX’s datacentre and carrier ambition to serve the market with neutrality is said to have resulted in a doubling of the number of facilities integrated into the city’s interconnection fabric, offering more opportunities to connect. This includes DE-CIX’s coverage into Long Island, Brooklyn and now six locations in New Jersey – something that the provider assures will reinforce the metro as a truly bi-state interconnection ecosystem rather than a single-city hub.

The New York City facility operates more access points than any other IX in North America and now supports more than 260 connected networks. It is claimed to be around 30% larger by connected networks than the next largest IX in the region, following what DE-CIX said is more than a decade of continuous presence and development in the market.

As traffic shifts toward higher-capacity services, DE-CIX New York has upgraded its platform to support growing demand for 400 Gigabit Ethernet (400 GE) ports. The rise of GPU-intensive and AI-driven workloads, alongside content distribution and large-scale cloud connectivity, is accelerating the need for higher throughput and lower latency interconnection.

As part of the modernisation programme, DE-CIX has also implemented reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM)-based smart switching technology within the metro network. This is intended to enable network paths to be adjusted via software, allowing traffic to be added, dropped or redirected remotely without requiring physical intervention. The result is said to be faster provisioning, improved operational agility and enhanced resilience in a region that cannot afford downtime.

Explaining the reasons for its upgrade, DE-CIX noted that rather than focusing on dealing with short-term growth spikes, recent investments have centred on strengthening resilience and long-term value for customers operating in one of the most mature and competitive interconnection environments in North America. The design, said DE-CIX, will deliver higher redundancy, greater resilience and enable “true” A/B connectivity strategies across the Hudson River.

The upgraded architecture is also said to reflect the growing importance of New Jersey as a natural extension of the New York metro’s digital infrastructure. By operating 2-node cores on each side of the Hudson, DE-CIX believes that its customers will be able to build geographically separated yet tightly integrated interconnection strategies.

Such qualities are said to be able to support enterprises, carriers, cloud providers and AI-driven platforms seeking greater operational control, improved business continuity and infrastructure diversity.