Start Campus Partners brings DE-CIX’s internet exchange services to Sines, Portugal

Start Campus announced that its SINES, Portugal location will soon be home to DE-CIX, an Internet Exchange (IX) operator. DE-CIX is expanding its Southern Europe IX footprint with a new Point of Presence (PoP) at Start Campus’s SINES Project, approximately 120 km from Lisbon, Portugal. 

Powered by 24x7 renewable energy facilities, Start Campus’s sustainable data center campus will be the site of a future access point for DE-CIX Lisbon, with direct connectivity to other DE-CIX IXs in Southern Europe, such as Madrid, Barcelona, and Marseille. When services go live in 2024, SINES will emerge as a critical intercontinental connectivity hub and a vital exchange point for data traffic going to and from Europe, North America, South America, and Africa.

Location is a crucial element of the Sines data center. Sines is positioned at Europe’s Southwestern edge, and multiple subsea providers plan to land their systems at Start Campus’s SINES Project, including EllaLink, which interconnects Europe, South America, and Africa. 

By partnering with DE-CIX, Start Campus gets access to a more extensive base of interconnection points. DE-CIX offers interconnection services in nearly 50 metro markets in Europe, Africa, North America, the Middle East, and Asia. Accessible from data centers in over 600 cities worldwide, DE-CIX interconnects thousands of network operators (carriers), ISPs, content providers, and enterprise networks from over 100 countries and offers peering cloud and interconnection services. DE-CIX in Frankfurt, Germany, is one of the largest Internet Exchanges in the world, with a data volume of almost 34 Exabytes per year (as of 2022) and close to 1,100 connected networks. 

“We are thrilled to welcome DE-CIX to Start Campus and to offer our customers an IX solution that will keep local traffic local while routing data more efficiently across DE-CIX’s interconnected footprint, which spans multiple metro regions, continents, and hundreds of data centers,” said Fabiola Bordino, head of sustainability, communications and marketing at Start Campus. “As we build a 100% sustainable, 24x7 renewable energy powered data center campus, companies like DE-CIX are critical. Enabling ease of interconnection and reach exemplifies our mission of creating a robust digital ecosystem to benefit the industry and our local market.”  

Theresa Bobis, regional director of Southern Europe at DE-CIX, agreed and added that DE-CIX will help enable a new connectivity option in Sines, Portugal, with Start Campus’s SINES project.

“Sines is set to be home to multiple subsea systems interconnecting and serving Southern Europe, coupled with the enhanced proximity and reach to Africa and other European markets, DE-CIX is excited to expand its Southern Europe footprint to Sines, fortifying connectivity for Portugal and beyond,” she said.   

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