The new Internet Exchange, AMS-IX Lagos, is situated in the carrier-neutral data center of MDXi, an Equinix Company. Under terms of the partnership, MDXi will serve as the commercial partner of AMS-IX and regional sales and marketing arm for AMS-IX Lagos. AMS-IX will run the technical and operational management of the exchange.

AMS-IX Lagos aims to become an important content hub for West Africa, enabling regional and local ISPs, carriers, and Internet Exchanges to aggregate content from large global Content Delivery Networks, hosting companies and application providers. In the coming months, MDXi, an Equinix Company and AMS-IX will focus on seeking alliances with local telecom operators and IX’s and supporting local ecosystems.

AMS-IX Lagos will launch with over 25 connected networks as AMS-IX and MDXi, an Equinix Company migrate and onboard the existing connected networks of West Africa Internet Exchange (WAF-IX) in the coming month. Connected networks at WAF-IX include large CDNs and application providers such as Cloudflare, Microsoft and Google.

Peter van Burgel, CEO of AMS-IX: “We intend to add value to the local carriers and IX’s by attracting even more content players to the region and support the local connectivity community. This is a very exciting project for us as we see it as an important steppingstone for bringing low-latency affordable Internet available for the West-African region.”  

Funke Opeke, Director MDXi, an Equinix company states “This partnership enables MDXi deliver value to the rich ecosystem of network operators, carriers, content providers, cloud services providers, and enterprises that we have present in the data center. The AMS-IX partnership will help MDXi consolidate its role as content hub not just for Nigeria, but for Francophone and English-speaking West and Central Africa.”

AMS-IX will be setting up an internet exchange at MDXi, the carrier-neutral Data Center of MainOne in Lagos Nigeria. MDXi will act as AMS-IX strategic partner and reseller for AMS-IX in West Africa.

This strategic partnership between AMS-IX and MDXi will deliver improved interconnection capabilities for existing and new customers on the exchange, further facilitating the distribution of content into the West African region.

With this partnership, content delivery networks, application providers, and hosting companies will now be able to exchange internet traffic locally through the rich interconnected ecosystem of networks, large enterprises, and cloud service providers, and network operators available at MDXi.

International Partnership Director Onno Bos of AMS-IX: “Lagos is the ideal location to serve as a content hub for West and Central Africa as it is strategically located in a fast-developing region with landing sites for international subsea cables connecting Africa to EMEA and beyond. We’re thrilled to work with such a strong partner as MainOne to expand this vibrant connectivity community.”

Oluwasayo Oshadami, GM, Technical Solutions, MainOne, “We’re excited to work with AMS-IX. AMS-IX has over 25 years of experience building, operating and growing Internet Exchanges all over the world. This partnership is an important step in realizing our long-term strategy to become a leading carrier-neutral digital infrastructure company by bringing a full range of transformative technologies to Africa.”

MDXi and AMS-IX are committed to developing Lagos into a regional content hub that services users all over West and Central Africa. The partners intend to seek alliances to connect with local telecom operators and IX’s to help develop and support local ecosystems.