2020 in numbers: Over 35% growth in internet data volume

In Amsterdam, we reached a new record-breaking peak traffic of over 9 Terabits per second on our peering platform. (9 Tbps corresponds to the simultaneous streaming of 1,800,000 HD (1080p) videos.) The pandemic has come in two waves and this was clearly visible on the platform. During both waves, we saw traffic increase roughly 20%. The total internet data volume exchanged in Amsterdam rose to 22,77 Exabyte in 2020, that’s 35% more than the year before. At the same time, mobile roaming traffic on the GRX declined.


By the end of 2020, we had 885+ networks connected at our Amsterdam platform. 21% of these networks come from the Netherlands, 49% from Europe (excl. Netherlands) and 30% from outside Europe. Many of our customers upgraded their port capacity to cope with the sudden increase of internet traffic. The number of active 100GE ports rose to 282, up 9% from 2019. The total capacity rose from 34,6 Tbps of port capacity to 42,1 Tbps.


Our exchanges in other parts of the world saw a surge in internet traffic as well. AMS-IX currently runs six independent internet exchanges under its own brand (Amsterdam, Chicago, Bay Area, Caribbean, Mumbai and Hong Kong) and one as powered by AMS-IX in Manama. All exchanges saw record-breaking traffic peaks. Particularly in Hong Kong where the peak traffic reached 77,85 Gigabit per second in 2020 (in 2019 this was 53,43 Gbps). In Mumbai, the exchange went up from a peak traffic of 60,77 Gbps in 2019 to 77,72 Gbps in 2020. MN-IX (powered by AMS-IX), which is now operational for 1,5 years noted a traffic peak of over 200 Gbps, effectively becoming the fastest growing internet exchange in the Middle East.