Rating the World’s Biggest Hubs

At TeleGeography, we’ve been engaged on a mission known as the Interconnection Index. This instrument is designed to reply some questions that we’ve discovered very tough to reply and quantify previously.

What’s the subsequent rising hub in a selected area? How do numerous hubs evaluate to one another? The place ought to I broaden in a sure nation moreover the most important metropolis?

It might be fairly difficult to create a one-size-fits-all mannequin that may reply all of those questions appropriately. However we’re nonetheless going to strive!

We’re going to handle this downside with information, and—as a result of we’re geography geeks—maps.

Within the map above, each blue dot is a metropolitan space that TeleGeography tracks. There are about 8,200 of them that we’ve collected information on for one cause or one other.

And by metro space, I imply an agglomeration of cities, so Washington DC can be one metro space—we’re not counting all the person parts of Northern Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Maryland.

Right here’s the framework for the way we’re going to attempt to deal with this.

In order that’s a theoretical instance; now let’s discuss via a sensible working instance.

Now for the enjoyable half: the precise mannequin outputs.

As of now, listed here are the highest 5 scoring hubs on this planet:

However that is simply top-level rating—the highest of the pyramid.

Selecting a quantity just isn’t terribly significant. London is primary, however what does that imply? Why is it primary?

In the event you begin breaking out why it scored so extremely, this all turns into extra attention-grabbing. A metropolis may be sturdy in some areas however weak in others. That is significantly necessary as a result of not everybody within the trade has the identical wants.

An organization that’s investing in AI and desires to discover a place to coach its fashions will care about numerous energy, probably renewable energy. Nonetheless, a CDN will wish to know the place the tip customers are.

So the place does London do nicely?

On the east aspect of the chart beneath, you’ll see telecom infrastructure standards. The west aspect extra so measures market potential. 

The additional out a bit reaches, the upper the rating. As you’ll be able to see, London does significantly nicely in pricing and long-distance transport, and it has very secure rules in comparison with different locations on this planet. 

Let’s spice issues up by overlaying one other metro space.

As we do that for plenty of totally different hubs, we begin seeing attention-grabbing patterns.

Under are the highest three hubs—as of now, this may increasingly change—for each area.

The smaller hubs are inclined to have spikier, starlike shapes. It is because they’re superb in just a few areas, however not as universally sturdy.

The upper scoring hubs are extra well-rounded, actually; their shapes are rounded. It is because they do numerous issues nicely. Tokyo, Singapore, Frankfurt, London, and even São Paulo—these are areas which might be compelling for funding for lots of causes.

That’s the place issues stand proper now.

To discover which metro areas we predict can be altering the quickest within the subsequent two years, obtain my full presentation from PTC ’24.