DE-CIX Supervisory Board member and Internet pioneer Harald A. Summa appointed to the Hessian Future Council for the Economy

Frankfurt am Main (Germany), 22 March 2023: DE-CIX Supervisory Board member and long-time CEO and Chair of the Board of the world’s leading operator of Internet Exchanges Harald A. Summa has been appointed by the state government of the German state of Hesse to its “Future Council for the Economy”. The Hessian Future Council for the Economy is set up as a politically independent advisory body open to all sectors. It has been tasked with making recommendations for action by the end of the year for the Hessian state government of the 21st century. The aim is to develop a strategy for the second legislative period on the topics of the digitalization and decarbonization of the economy, the work of the future, and Hesse’s strategic positioning at (inter)national level. The recommendations for action are to be in the interest of Hessian companies, employees, and Hesse as a business location, and are to be developed – as far as possible – through mutual agreement.

“The digitalization of Hesse and Germany can only succeed if there is nationwide availability of infrastructures for data storage, processing, and distribution that are both sustainable and high performance,” comments Harald A. Summa, member of the Supervisory Board at DE-CIX, on his appointment to the Future Council. “The further rollout of fiber optic networks must go hand in hand with a decentralized build-out of regional data centers in order to connect companies and administrations directly to a high-performance, federated cloud infrastructure with a competitive offering. DE-CIX will play its part by making its interconnection services available in an automated way not only to network operators and cloud service providers, but also to enterprises and administrations.”

With a data volume of almost 34 exabytes per year (as of 2022) and almost 1100 connected networks, DE-CIX in Frankfurt is one of the largest Internet Exchanges in the world and is considered part of the critical infrastructure in Germany.

In addition, DE-CIX offers its peering, cloud, and other interconnection services in over 40 metro regions in Europe, Africa, North America, the Middle East, and Asia. DE-CIX is accessible from data centers in over 600 cities worldwide and connects thousands of network operators (carriers), Internet service providers (ISPs), content providers and corporate networks from more than 100 countries.