International web bandwidth elevated by 23% in 2025, sustaining its constant tempo of regular development.
Whole worldwide bandwidth now stands at a powerful 1,835 Tbps, representing a four-year compound annual development price (CAGR) of 24%.
Though the tempo of development has slowed ever so barely lately, bandwidth has nonetheless greater than doubled since 2021.
Naturally, capability development varies throughout totally different areas. As soon as once more, Africa led the way in which with probably the most fast development in worldwide web bandwidth, increasing at a compound annual price of 38% between 2021 and 2025. The Center East adopted, rising at a 27% compound annual price over the identical interval.
Worldwide Web Bandwidth Development by Area
The mixed results of recent internet-enabled gadgets, rising broadband penetration in growing markets, larger broadband entry charges, and bandwidth-intensive functions will proceed to gas robust web site visitors development.
Whereas end-user site visitors necessities will proceed to rise, not all of this demand will translate instantly into the necessity for brand new long-haul capability.
Quite a lot of components form how the worldwide web will develop within the coming years:
Synthetic Intelligence (AI)Â
That is probably the most hyped demand driver lately, however its affect on worldwide web capability just isn’t fully clear. The impact of AI won’t be solely felt within the networks of the big cloud suppliers concerned in AI, akin to Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft.Â
Many corporations are providing GPUs-as-a-Service (GPUaaS), which permits anybody entry to GPUs to coach their very own fashions or use them for inference. As customers deploy AI fashions and inference clusters utilizing these GPUs, the site visitors will finally run by the networks of many operators, not simply these of the key cloud suppliers.
Bypassing the Public Web
The biggest content material suppliers have lengthy operated huge networks.
These corporations proceed to expertise extra fast development than web backbones, and they’re increasing into new areas. Many different corporations, akin to cloud service suppliers, CDNs, and even some knowledge middle operators, function personal backbones that bypass the general public web. In consequence, a rising share of worldwide site visitors is carried by these networks.
Worldwide Necessities of New Functions
Whereas there’s little doubt that enhanced end-user entry bandwidth and new functions will create giant site visitors flows, it isn’t clear how a lot of this development would require using worldwide hyperlinks.
Within the close to time period, the elevated reliance on direct connections to content material suppliers and using caching will proceed to have a localizing impact on site visitors patterns, dampening worldwide web site visitors development.
IP Transit Value Erosion
Worldwide transport unit prices underlay IP transit pricing. As new worldwide networks are deployed, operational and development prices are distributed over extra fiber pairs and extra lively capability, making every packet inexpensive to hold.
We’re already seeing a serious shift from 10 GigE necessities to 100 GigE necessities, and we count on that 400 GigE will emerge in two to a few years as a major a part of the market.
The introduction of recent worldwide infrastructure additionally creates alternatives for extra regional localization of content material and fewer dependence on distant hubs. As rising markets develop in scale, they can even profit from economies of scale, even when solely by cheaper transport to web hubs.Â
Get Extra Web Bandwidth and Visitors Knowledge
You’ll discover extra analysis like this in our IP Networks Analysis Service, probably the most full supply of information and evaluation about worldwide web capability, site visitors, service suppliers, ASN connectivity, and pricing.
Obtain the government abstract of the evaluation to get an outline of the brand new analysis.Â
