Equinix stated that according to its annual market study, GXI Vol. 5, with the pandemic, economies are forced into digital overdrive, with organizations were already implementing a digital-first strategy, moving four times faster than pre-pandemic levels. These organizations managed to compact the time required to deploy their infrastructure to multiple regions, expand to edge locations and integrate clouds. All the process is currently achievable in six months, which might have taken a couple of years.
Four times faster
Equinix stated that the pace of the digital transformation is expected to continue to boost the growth in interconnection bandwidth. The report says that the transferred data between organizations is expected to reach 21,485+ terabits per second, or 85 zettabytes, per year by 2024, which represents a 5-year CAGR of 44%. Some insights from the report are:
- Close to 30% of enterprise infrastructure deployed in carrier-neutral facilities has moved to the edge, in proximity to points of data consumption. Service Providers are also expanding at the edge, growing their edge infrastructure 2x faster than their core infrastructure, enabling them to support increasing demand from enterprises.
- Digital leaders are interconnecting with 10 times as many partners, enabling them to ride the wave of digital transformation and enjoy best-of-breed services from a vast pool of Service Providers and partners. The trend has been tracked across 12 industries and three regions for traditional companies, born in the cloud, Service Providers, and even hyper-scale providers.
- Among industries, the Financial Services sector is expected to deploy more than 50% of Enterprise interconnection bandwidth, with Manufacturing as the second-largest industry.
Claire Macland, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Equinix - The Public Sector, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Industrial Services, and Transportation industries are expected to experience the fastest digital infrastructure growth, which is forecast to drive a 48% or more CAGR in interconnection bandwidth from 2020 to 2024 globally. These industries that were previously lagging in interconnection adoption are now leading in interconnection growth rate as a result of the pandemic.
Claire Macland, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Equinix said,
“While COVID has forced businesses to innovate in many ways, by both expanding existing and introducing new digital services, the infrastructure underpinning these services must keep pace. As a result, savvy businesses are now moving four times faster than pre-pandemic levels in deploying this necessary digital infrastructure.”