DE-CIX Completes Resilient Three-Route Gateway Between the Middle East, Balkans, and Central Europe

New Sofia–Frankfurt and Istanbul–Sofia connectivity complements existing pathways on the DE-CIX backbone, giving Middle Eastern networks multiple geographically diverse routes to DE-CIX Frankfurt

DE-CIX, the world’s leading Internet Exchange (IX) operator, has completed a resilient three-route gateway connecting the Middle East and Southeast Europe with Central Europe. New backbone connectivity between BIX.BG in Sofia (Bulgaria) and DE-CIX Frankfurt (Germany) is now live, alongside a new direct connection between Sofia and DE-CIX Istanbul (Türkiye).

Together with the existing routes directly from DE-CIX Istanbul and DE-CIX Athens, the connections give network operators across the Middle East, Asia, and the Balkans three geographically diverse westbound pathways to DE-CIX Frankfurt – from Istanbul in under 40 milliseconds, Sofia in under 35 milliseconds, and Athens in under 50 milliseconds. Operators can redirect traffic between alternate terrestrial and subsea routes when individual pathways are disrupted or congested, helping them maintain reliable access to cloud, content, and AI infrastructure in Central Europe.

Growing geopolitical uncertainty and recent disruption to critical terrestrial and subsea infrastructure have made route diversity an increasingly important part of network resilience. DE-CIX’s backbone pathways are built with geo-redundancy and non-overlapping routes, reducing the risk that a single local incident or infrastructure failure can interrupt connectivity between these regions.

Low latency access for Middle-Eastern networks to high-performance content and gaming

For Middle-Eastern networks, the connectivity between DE-CIX Istanbul and BIX.BG in Sofia means that more content is now directly available in Istanbul from the Balkan content hub. Connectivity between Istanbul and Sofia in under 12 ms enables, for example, Turkish and Middle-Eastern Internet service providers to ensure the lowest latency and best possible quality of digital content and online gaming for their end customers. DE-CIX has been operating in the Middle East and Türkiye for more than 10 years, with six exchanges across Middle East, including several of the largest in the region. The Internet, Cloud, and AI Exchange DE-CIX Istanbul, an important gateway to European networks for the region, connects 70 networks and carries 613 Gbit/s of traffic at peak times.

Cloud and AI connectivity from Europe’s leading cloud hub

Networks connected to BIX.BG can now access clouds in Frankfurt and use DE-CIX’s Internet, Cloud, and AI Exchange, as well as its cloud-to-cloud routing technology, to support digital transformation and the development of AI-supported services in the Balkan region. ISPs in the East Balkans can better serve their enterprise customers with low-latency and resilient connectivity to cloud and AI workloads. BIX.BG, of which DE-CIX is now a major stakeholder, connects 136 networks with peak traffic exceeding 1.3 Tbit/s and strengthens DE-CIX’s presence in the Balkan region and complements the operator’s other exchange in the region, DE-CIX Athens.

Located on the shores of the Mediterranean, DE-CIX Athens is the Internet, Cloud, and AI Exchange for the East Mediterranean. It enables Southeast European networks seamless access to clouds and content both locally in the emerging cloud hub of Athens, as well as in Frankfurt. The exchange also provides a further entry-point to Europe for Middle Eastern, Asian, and African networks via subsea cable connectivity from the Black Sea, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean basin.

Bringing the world closer together through the East Mediterranean Gateway

“The future of the digital economy depends on resilient, diverse, and seamlessly interconnected infrastructure,” says Ivo Ivanov, CEO of DE-CIX. “The East Mediterranean Gateway marks another important step in our mission to bring networks, clouds, and digital services closer to users worldwide. By linking the Middle East, the Balkans, and Europe through multiple redundant routes, we are enhancing digital resilience, supporting economic development, and enabling the next generation of cloud and AI-driven services across the region.”

The city of Frankfurt is the global Number One Digital Capital, with the strongest network and cloud density, the highest port capacity, and the most highly interconnected data center landscape in the world. DE-CIX Frankfurt is the largest IX in Europe and one of the largest in the world. Now in operation for over 30 years, it carries an annual data volume of over 48 Exabytes with peak traffic of almost 20 Tbit/s and connects close to 1100 networks.