The London Internet Exchange (LINX) are powering a new Internet Exchange Point (IXP) in Riyadh, KSA, hosted by Center3, part of the STC Group.
The vision of a new interconnection hub in Riyadh was first announced in 2022 following the success of the LINX powered IXP in Jeddah, the fastest growing interconnection hub In the Middle East.
We are very pleased with the success of JEDix since the launch of the IXP back in 2019. Over 40 ports are currently connected and the capacity is due to exceed 3Tb very soon. The partnership with STC, and now Center3 has also grown, and we are very proud to be able to be their trusted technical partner as we expand into new regions like Riyadh.
Halil Kama, Interconnection Specialist, LINX
Digital transformation remains high on the agenda for KSA as they continue their work towards the Saudi Vision 2030. For the majority of the projects including smart cities, AI in healthcare and digital banking, strong connectivity is a key factor to success.
The new Internet Exchange Point in Riyadh is now live and located within the Remal facility, RDC102, with quite the waiting list of global networks looking to interconnect and start peering across the LINX powered platform.
Riyadh is rapidly emerging as a thriving digital hub, ranked 30th in the global smart city ranking, coming out ahead of Paris, Berlin, and Madrid, the tech scene is moving at a fast pace.
The growth of the digital landscape in KSA has been incredible and the timing for our new IXP in Riyadh is perfect. Having worked closely with the customers connected in Jeddah, many are keen to connect in Riyadh too in order to regionalise their network traffic even further. This is a key point for any network strategy, lowering latency even more and improving performance for the end user.
Halil Kama, Interconnection Specialist, LINX
By leveraging LINX’s world-class technology and expertise, the Riyadh IX will provide a robust platform for internet service providers (ISPs), content delivery networks (CDNs), and enterprise networks to interconnect and exchange traffic locally. This method of network management increases control which is a key benefit with the fast growth in online traffic.
The team at LINX are confident the new Riyadh hub will follow the success in Jeddah where traffic being passed there recently exceeded 750Gbps.