A new study, from DE-CIX, a global internet exchange operator, has revealed that 80% of all internet exchanges (IXs) in the US are neutral, meaning they aren’t tied to specific data centres or carriers.

The report noted a 600% increase in the number of IXs over the last decade, with most now operating on neutral platforms, driven by the rise of cloud computing, artificial intelligence, online gaming and high-resolution streaming.

A neutral internet exchange is a physical location where various ISPs and networks can come together to share data, with the main feature being that no single ISP owns the exchange zone, ensuring that all participants have equal access to the data exchange.

The report shows that these neutral exchanges are connecting four times more data centres from different providers than traditional ones, giving businesses and networks more options and stronger reliability.

According to the report, network operators prefer this model, with 35 of the 50 largest IXs in the US being neutral. 

DE-CIX says that these neutral IXs create a dense network environment, allowing businesses and operators to take advantage of more resilient, low-latency, edge-based connectivity.

The report also highlights the increasing need for resilient and redundant connectivity, along with geographical diversity, arguing that allowing businesses to connect to an IX from multiple data centres, as well as to multiple IXs and across regions, has become business critical.

The study claims that neutral internet exchanges are crucial for building collaborative networks by linking different data centres and bringing together various networks, and encourages competition, giving network operators and businesses more choices. 

Interestingly, the report points out data showing that adding more neutral IXs often boosts the growth of other IXs in the market instead of leading to fragmentation.

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“The past decade has demonstrated the immense value of the neutral and distributed model for driving digital growth in the US market,” said Ivo Ivanov, CEO of DE-CIX.

“The study shows that these IXs, which follow the European model of neutrality, are not only future-proof, but essential to support the emerging needs of cloud computing, AI, and IoT to enable extremely low latency connectivity for critical current and future use cases.”