Cross-country regulations on data usage and localization have opened up business opportunities for global content delivery networks (CDNs) and cloud service operators. One of the beneficiaries is Akamai, which claims to have invented the underlying technology behind CDNs.

Increasing scrutiny of data and fragmented regulations have created new business opportunities for CDNs, said Tom Leighton, co-founder and CEO of Akamai.

More and more governments are trying to regulate and control data, which makes operations difficult to some extent, Leighton said in an interview. “But internet adoption is increasing and as a result there are more global companies. So over time there is a lot more usage. While government control presents challenges, it also presents greater opportunities,” said Leighton.

These opportunities arise from a number of regulations, including the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP), passed by Parliament on August 9th. The legislation introduced controls, sanctions and penalties on the use and misuse of data by technology companies globally into Indian law for the first time.

Mint reported on September 14 that the center will set tight deadlines for large companies to comply with the new data rules, while smaller companies would be given more time.

This could open up new monetization opportunities for CDNs, said Leighton. “If you are a global company, you have to comply with all technical regulations around the world. This gives us the opportunity to enter here as we already have global technical capabilities that we can deploy to a large number of customers. From a financial perspective, this makes more sense: you can go to one company and manage its data-driven operations in different countries. This is an added value that we can provide that would otherwise be more difficult for individual companies,” he added.

To achieve this, global cloud service providers are working to be compliant first. According to Leighton, Akamai has servers in 130 countries, which increases operational complexity as it has to comply with various regulations such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and India’s DPDP law.

Akamai has competition. In August last year, Jonathon Dixon, Asia Pacific managing director at rival CDN service Cloudflare, said the company was working to meet India’s regulatory requirements by the end of 2022. In September last year, the company launched a data localization suite for cloud and CDN customers.

“We have infrastructure almost everywhere, which means we can provide the data within those regions, and we also do a lot of work to keep the data within that region. This requires more investment from us. To achieve all of this, we have 4,000 Edge Points of Presence (PoPs) around the world and are present on 1,200 different global networks – which we work with to position our servers,” said Leighton.

US-based Akamai, whose CDN customers include homegrown gaming startup Rooter, global gaming services Nintendo and Sony Playstation, and retail chain JC Penney, reported currency-neutral revenue growth of 8% over last year Last year with sales of $3.62 billion. Leighton confirmed that Akamai now employs over 2,500 people in India, representing a quarter of its global workforce.