The cloud market continues to grow steadily. In 2024, Annual Web Services (AWS) increased its global revenues by 19 per cent, exceeding the $100 billion mark for the first time. Its closest competitors, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, achieved even stronger percentage growth. The main reason for this expansion was the widespread adoption of AI systems, which gave cloud usage an additional boost: AI models are trained in the cloud and are made accessible to a large number of users via providers. Moreover, AI solutions based on these models are developed in the cloud and provided as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications.

This development provides momentum for a cloud association, but it also changes the tasks at hand. While at EuroCloud Deutschland we had to proselytise the delivering model and prepare the market in the early years, cloud computing has now become the “new normal”. This shifts the focus to other aspects such as the regulatory framework for cloud and AI usage or the requirements for the secure and sovereign operation of workloads in the cloud. We are already taking this development into account and have shifted our focus beyond infrastructure to include topics such as Coud Native, Managed Services and SaaS in recent years.

New legal acts change the framework for cloud and AI

At EuroCloud, we also focused intensively on the AI Act, which came into force on 1 August 2024. The events we organised on this topic as part of the “AI in Practice” initiative attracted considerable interest, as did the white paper we produced together with members (“AI Act – What Are We Actually Talking About?”). Another important regulation that we addressed at an early stage is the Data Act. While the EU regulation will not become an applicable law until September 2025, it is already casting its shadow ahead. It obliges cloud providers to remove the technical, contractual and financial barriers that make it difficult for customers to migrate their workloads to other clouds or back to on-premises environments, known as cloud switching.

Furthermore, we at EuroCloud worked intensively on Confidential Computing. This concept enables workloads to be operated in protected environments to which even the cloud provider has no administrative access. Together with our members, we also wrote a white paper on this topic together with members (“Confidential Computing – Secure and Sovereign in the Cloud”). As more critical data is processed in the cloud, this concept becomes increasingly important.

The extent to which German companies now regard the cloud as an enabler for digital business models was once again confirmed by the “EuroCloud Pulse Check” (formerly “ECN Pulse Check”), which we conducted for the fourth time in 2024. The study also made it clear that sovereignty is becoming increasingly important to customers when using cloud services. This requirement is primarily addressed by a group of European providers that we refer to as “superscalers”, who are increasingly asserting themselves confidently in the market. In the “EuroCloud Pulse Check 2025”, we will devote increased attention to the superscalers.

EuroCloud reaches new target groups

The increasing maturity of the cloud market is also leading to consolidation in other areas. Several members of our EuroCloud Native (ECN) initiative have been taken over by established service providers who expanded their cloud expertise through these acquisitions, or they were absorbed into larger groups. In return, EuroCloud has shifted its focus to other target groups: system integrators and software providers who are under pressure to transform into Managed Service Providers or SaaS providers due to the development toward X-as-a-Service. In 2024, we developed new concepts for both target groups for implementation in 2025. This enabled us to successfully establish new formats.

To provide a common networking platform for the association’s different target groups, in 2024 we hosted a physical event for all EuroCloud members for the first time after a long period. With the “EuroCloud Summit 2024”, we were guests at Adacor Hosting in Offenbach on 26 September 2024.

One topic that remained essential for all players in the cloud market during the reporting year was digital infrastructure. One key component is that of DE-CIX.

DE-CIX: Strong growth in customer capacity characterises the 2024 financial year

In its 30th anniversary year, DE-CIX, the world’s leading Internet Exchange (IX) operator, reported double-digit growth in networks, data traffic and capacity. The company completed the year with more than 4,000 globally connected networks, a 10 per cent increase over the previous year, and 170 Terabits of connected customer capacity, representing a growth of 20 per cent. Peak global traffic via peering stood at almost 25 Terabits per second at the end of the year – an increase of 11 per cent compared to 2023. Global revenue rose by 8.3 per cent to 68.6 million Euro. With the expansion of five additional IX locations in 2024 and the announcement of market entry into Brazil, DE-CIX is now present in 60 markets across five continents, thereby doubling its global footprint over the past five years. In 2024, more than 68 Exabytes of data traffic were exchanged via the networks connected to DE-CIX locations worldwide, representing an increase of around 15 per cent over the previous year.

The company operates several of the world’s most important IXs, including: DE-CIX Frankfurt, the largest IX in Europe; DE-CIX New York, the largest in the northeastern United States; DE-CIX Mumbai, the largest in India; and UAE-IX powered by DE-CIX, the largest Internet Exchange in the Middle East. With its connected networks and geographical coverage, DE-CIX is unrivalled worldwide in providing peering services via Internet Exchanges. Peering – i.e., the direct interconnection of networks – is used by customers to optimise data paths and enhance the performance and security of the digital content, services and applications that make up the Internet. In addition to its long-standing customer base of wholesale network operators, DE-CIX also offers peering and interconnection services to global corporations and Fortune 500 companies. This gives the operator a decisive influence on the global traffic flows that drive the Internet, the digital economy and digital life.

30 years of DE-CIX: Digital infrastructure from Germany for the world

For 30 years now, DE-CIX has been operating digital infrastructure in Germany that is considered critical today. The company and its first Internet Exchange – DE-CIX Frankfurt – were launched in 1995. At the 60 neutral exchange points that DE-CIX now operates worldwide, Internet, cloud and content providers interconnect their networks to exchange data securely, quickly and in a controlled manner. With a data volume of almost 45 Exabytes per year (as of 2024) and almost 1,100 connected networks, DE-CIX Frankfurt is one of the largest Internet exchanges in the world. And this success story “Made in Germany” continues.

Felix Höger
eco Board Member for Online Services & Cloud Computing