Teraco has launched a new partner API for its Africa Cloud Exchange (ACX) platform, empowering systems integrators, managed service providers, and network partners to wrap ACX and deliver seamless cloud interconnection services directly to their clients.
A Digital Realty company and provider of interconnection platforms and vendor-neutral colocation data centres, announced significant initiatives aimed at expanding cloud and internet connectivity across the African continent.
Teraco has launched a new partner API for its Africa Cloud Exchange (ACX) platform, empowering systems integrators, managed service providers, and network partners to wrap ACX and deliver seamless cloud interconnection services directly to their clients.
The partner API conforms to IX API standards, the globally accepted framework for internet exchange and interconnection automation. Through this open approach, Teraco is expanding market access and enabling partners to provision ACX connections at the software level, creating virtual connections to any participant on the exchange once a physical connection is established.
Teraco’s ACX improves enterprise hybrid and multi-cloud performance by providing secure, direct, and flexible interconnection to a wide range of local and global cloud providers. ACX allows enterprises to improve cloud application performance, reduce latency and network costs, scale on demand, and deliver an enhanced cloud experience to end users.
NAPAfrica, Africa’s leading and fastest-growing Internet Exchange Point (IXP), is expanding its community-focused infrastructure to support high-performance, resilient connectivity for enterprises and networks, ensuring reliable access and optimised performance for critical digital operations.
“These developments reflect Teraco’s ongoing commitment to creating a more connected and collaborative cloud ecosystem,”
– Andrew Owens, Interconnection and Peering Lead, Teraco
Expanding ecosystem
NAPAfrica has reached a new milestone of six terabits per second (Tbps) of traffic, driven by the continued growth and expansion of its peering community. With 680 networks peering at its exchange points, NAPAfrica continues to play a critical role in keeping African internet traffic local, reducing costs, and improving network performance.
“Increased traffic volumes between cloud providers, enterprises, and networks highlight how peering is an enabler in accelerating digital transformation across the continent. Our mission is to provide participants with access to seamless, reliable infrastructure that enables the cost effective distribution of content across Africa. The continued growth at NAPAfrica is a testament to the continent’s vibrant internet community, which has embraced peering, data-intensive applications, cloud adoption, and the rising demand for video, content, and gaming services.”
– Andrew Owens, Interconnection and Peering Lead, Teraco
Most of Africa’s internet traffic was traditionally routed through Europe, resulting in increased latency and higher costs. NAPAfrica has helped keep African traffic within the continent, leading to improved performance for ISPs, mobile operators, and enterprises, while fostering a more self-sufficient African internet ecosystem.
Hosted within Teraco data centres, Africa’s largest carrier and vendor-neutral data centre operator, NAPAfrica operates in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban, three of South Africa’s key internet traffic hubs. NAPAfrica serves as a critical interconnection point for regional and international networks. Teraco facilitates direct interconnections with major ISPs, CDNs, global cloud providers, and enterprises, offering a seamless, cost-effective peering experience.
Enhanced network performance
As global cloud providers grow their presence in Africa, NAPAfrica supports this momentum with robust infrastructure, positioning itself as a key enabler of internet services and cloud adoption across the region. NAPAfrica’s adoption of the Kentik Network Observability platform provides peering members with critical network insights, allowing them to optimise traffic flows, detect anomalies, and enhance performance.
In March, NAPAfrica offered 400Gbps interconnects to its clients, accommodating the growing bandwidth demands of content and cloud providers. This is complemented by more than 2,300 physically connected ports and a total connected capacity of almost 45 terabits.
Where sub-Saharan Africa meets global content and cloud
NAPAfrica attracts global technology leaders and content providers, including Akamai, Amazon, Cloudflare, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, and TikTok, enabling direct content delivery and cloud access across Africa. In 2025, NAPAfrica welcomed 32 new members, including Cable & Wireless Seychelles, Rain Networks, and SES.
South Africa’s strategic position as a landing point for subsea cables, including 2Africa, ACE, EASSy, Equiano, METISS, SAT3/SAFE, Seacom, and WACS, has significantly bolstered international connectivity. Networks across sub-Saharan Africa peer at NAPAfrica to access global content efficiently.
Although many global IXPs charge for port access, NAPAfrica offers free peering, enabling ISPs, content providers, and enterprises to reduce transit costs while improving network performance.
Cache server deployments
NAPAfrica has deployed additional cache servers in Teraco data centres to cover regional connectivity requirements, including hosting Netflix Open Connect in Cape Town and Durban. By reducing the distance data must travel, this initiative enables faster load times and enriches the user experience for local audiences.
