NAPAfrica, a leading Internet Exchange Point (IXP) in Africa, has achieved a significant milestone, reaching five terabits per second (Tbps) of traffic in February 2025. This achievement solidifies its status as the continent’s top peering hub and places it among the world’s ten largest IXPs by traffic volume.
Based in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban, NAPAfrica facilitates connectivity for over 655 networks, including internet service providers (ISPs), content delivery networks (CDNs), cloud providers, and enterprises. Hosted within Teraco’s carrier-neutral data centres, the exchange has grown steadily, with traffic rising from 100Gbps in 2016 to 2Tbps in 2021 and now hitting 5Tbps. The platform currently supports 2,244 physically connected ports and a total capacity of 41.5Tbps.
The milestone reflects NAPAfrica’s role in reducing latency and costs by keeping African internet traffic within the continent. This is supported by its free peering model, a departure from many global IXPs that charge for access. The exchange has also introduced high-capacity 400Gbps interconnects – a first for Africa. The exchange has also expanded its peering community, adding over 40 new members in the past year, including Mimecast, Fortinet, and Tencent.
South Africa’s position as a landing point for subsea cables, such as 2Africa, Equiano, and WACS, enhanced NAPAfrica’s international connectivity. Major tech firms like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Netflix peer at the exchange, with additional cache servers, including Netflix Open Connect, deployed in Cape Town and Durban to improve local content delivery.
The growth in mobile and broadband usage across Africa has also driven demand, as ISPs and mobile operators lean on NAPAfrica to handle surging traffic from video streaming, gaming, and cloud services. Tools like the Kentik Network Observability platform give members insights to optimize performance.
NAPAfrica’s rise aligns with Africa’s broader digital transformation, which is supported by its strategic locations and Teraco’s infrastructure. Industry observers note that the exchange’s efforts to localize traffic and bolster connectivity are helping create a more self-sufficient internet ecosystem on the continent.
