27 April 2021

Paving a new data traffic highway across the Atlantic Ocean: DE-CIX and Ellalink commit to a strategic partnership

Lisbon/Madrid/Dublin, 27 April 2021: DE-CIX, the world’s leading Internet Exchange operator, and EllaLink, the express optical platform between Europe and Latin America, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a strategic partnership. The goal of the partnership is to promote and enhance a new low latency path across the southern Atlantic, directly connecting Brazil and South Europe. Lisbon will function as the entry point to South Europe’s largest neutral interconnection ecosystem, consisting of the five DE-CIX interconnected IXs in Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Marseille and Palermo. The aim of the partnership is to offer the unique benefits of the low latency routing to all DE-CIX and EllaLink customers and partners, as well as the wider global Internet community at large.

“Latency is the new currency of our digitalized world. Everything, everywhere, will be digital – and every millisecond counts when it comes to critical applications for different verticals, e.g. mobility, finance, or e-health. The two strong business regions of South Europe and Latin America share many similarities when it comes to culture, language, and the demands on the markets, and will now – with the new EllaLink sub sea cable – grow together even more strongly. The huge demand for low-latency and high quality data exchange between the two continents requires the shortest and fastest connection possible. This is what users on both sides of the Atlantic deserve for a great Internet experience,” says Ivo Ivanov, CEO of DE-CIX International.

“One of our main objectives for creating a low latency route between Latin America and Southern Europe was establish a unique ecosystem which would unite these two markets and provide benefits to users in both continents. The demand for digital content continues to rise, which in turn drives the demand for network optimisation. EllaLink’s design places Fortaleza as close to Europe as it is to the USA, and therefore with the same latency reach. Through our partnership with DE-CIX, EllaLink will be able to provide Latin America with safer, more efficient, and more secure access to Internet Exchange points in Europe allowing us to offer a stable and secure environment for our customers. We are excited to lead this new route revolution,” said Diego Matas, COO of EllaLink.

Celebrating its fifth anniversary, DE-CIX Madrid is the heart of the largest neutral interconnection ecosystem in South Europe, which also consists of further IXs in Barcelona, Lisbon, Marseille, and Palermo. As data traffic is increasingly moving to the south, DE-CIX Lisbon, DE-CIX Barcelona, and DE-CIX Marseille act as an ideal gateway to enter Europe from the Americas, Africa, and Asia, to interconnect directly with local, regional, and global networks, and get closer to people and businesses.