British multinational telecommunications company, BT Group, has announced a significant partnership with Digital Realty, a global provider of carrier neutral facilities (CNFs). This strategic alignment aims to facilitate the unlocking of full data value for consumers, enabling secure and compliant access to data across businesses, and potentially leading to a reduction in total costs for IT leaders. The announcement came on the 4th of December, 2023.

The joint venture will see the deployment of BT’s innovative Global Fabric network-as-a-service (NaaS), a flexible, scalable, and resilient connectivity solution with a footprint that spans the globe's top cloud destinations. Through Digital Realty’s 300 CNFs, available across six continents and stretched over 50 metros in more than 25 countries, consumers will benefit from an expansive data-centre platform. This digital hub integrates technology and data to drive digital transformation for businesses.

The partnership will provide customers the flexibility to choose and instantly establish the right connections for their applications and data within and between CNFs. In addition, layering on security services will simplify the sharing process across businesses.

Harm Joosse, Global Head of Strategy & Business Development, Service Providers, at Digital Realty, stated: "By integrating into Digital Realty’s global data centre platform, customers address data gravity challenges by bringing users and clouds to the data with BT's Global Fabric connectivity, controls, and policy management." Joosse further added that the fusion of BT’s NaaS solution with Digital Realty’s orchestration platform empowers enterprises with on-demand, personalised experiences, fundamentally changing the way networks are used and controlled.

Colin Bannon, CTO, Business, BT, explained: "Businesses deploying cloud services locally benefit from proximity to customers and suppliers. For large organisations, more value can be unlocked if local data can be brought together centrally in a secure and compliant way to create new insights. With data volumes surging, CIOs need greater control of data flows. The combination of Global Fabric and Digital Realty can help customers unlock value from data by stopping local data hubs from becoming digital black holes."

This combined effort between BT and Digital Realty aims to meet the customer needs of flexibility and connectivity while providing secure data access, addressing cybersecurity threats and ensuring compliance with regulations on data in transit.