Enterprise IT leaders now have to modernize infrastructure at a pace that matches ever-accelerating AI innovation, global expansion, and hybrid cloud demands — all while staying cost-effective and compliant.

At Zenlayer, we’re seeing firsthand how these demands are rapidly evolving, mounting pressure on IT teams to deliver infrastructure that’s faster, more flexible, and globally available.

On April 3, 2025, our EVP of Business Growth Americas & EMEA, Craig “Kap” Kaplan, along with Jules Johnston, SVP of Global Channels at Digital Realty, co-hosted an executive webinar focused on how our two companies are helping global businesses meet these challenges head-on — and why speed, flexibility, and partnership matter more than ever.

Check out the 5 key takeaways from their conversation below.

1. Delivering enterprise solutions at scale through partnership

Zenlayer and Digital Realty are evolving our partner-first strategies — especially for large enterprise and multinational customers.

Jules: “Digital Realty has made a stated commitment to grow our ecosystem to provide enterprises with flexible solutions.”

As Kap emphasized, our shared customers will greatly benefit from this alignment, especially when they need solutions spanning multiple continents and cloud architectures.

Kap: “When we go in together and talk to our customers, it really becomes that easy button to say, well, we can plug in wherever you need to today — and plug in wherever you’re going into the future.”

Takeaway: Enterprises no longer want piecemeal solutions. They want a unified team, a global footprint, and infrastructure partners that can scale up or down based on their needs — from core to edge.

2. Rethinking the enterprise infrastructure planning cycle

As AI workloads grow in scale and complexity, IT leaders face mounting requirements for power density, cooling systems, and data proximity, all of which must be addressed earlier in the design process than ever before. What was once an afterthought — choosing where to host infrastructure — is now a chief concern at the start of every project.

Jules: “If you’re envisioning a solution that is going to require liquid cooling, you’re making a determination upfront: where are you going to home that? It’s no longer okay to concept your project and pick the home at the end.”

Zenlayer’s network and edge services are designed to meet those evolving needs, whether it’s supporting high-throughput model training or enabling inference at the edge with ultra-low latency.

Kap: “We’re seeing a push not just for training LLM models in core data centers, but for inference use cases deployed to the edge… That requires a rethink of the entire connectivity architecture.”

Takeaway: AI integration is forcing enterprises to integrate data center, network, and compute planning from day one. That’s why Zenlayer and Digital Realty are working closely to provide infrastructure that’s not only AI-ready, but AI-optimized.

3. Accelerating global deployment with local expertise

When customers ask us to help them deploy in hard-to-reach markets, they need more than rack space. Key to their success are in-region knowledge, fast timelines, and compliance support. Together with Digital Realty, we’re meeting those needs in real time.

Kap: “We’ve deployed new PoPs within less than three months based on the drive of global business… sometimes they’re private cloud deployments just for our enterprises and infrastructure clients.”

Jules: “That’s a lot of how we think about Zenlayer — as the easy button for companies who are trying to get to some of the hardest corners of the globe.”

Takeaway: From Vietnam and Indonesia to the Middle East and Africa, Zenlayer’s global edge presence complements Digital Realty’s extensive data center footprint, empowering enterprises to deploy with speed, reach, and peace of mind.

4. Optimizing infrastructure via hybrid models and repatriation

Enterprises are reassessing their infrastructure strategies after years of cloud-first decisions. Many are now looking to repatriate workloads to regain control while balancing cost and performance.

Jules: “They’re not, in most cases, wanting to bring it back to a private data center. They’re wanting to bring it to a colocation facility… and often need managed services on top of it.”

Kap: “The COVID buildout… was done at a pace back during that phase that was, okay, we just need to expand and get our digital footprint everywhere. Right now, we’re seeing the same thing you are — which is, let’s look more thoughtfully in terms of how this is planned out, so that there’s cost efficiency, the right compute, the right cloud or private cloud.”

Zenlayer’s rapid deployment capabilities, combined with custom bare metal and managed hosting services, give customers flexible options like GPU/CPU optimization, network stack control, and region-specific deployments.

Kap: “We’ll literally pull a bare metal server out and deploy it into a managed hosting rack to provide faster deployments and flexibility — especially when you’re considering 50 countries to operate in.”

Takeaway: Whether customers need private cloud, hybrid, or edge deployments, working with Zenlayer and Digital Realty unlocks the tools and support to deploy workloads where they make the most sense for optimal performance and cost.

5. Orchestrating with greater operational trust and transparency

The rise of distributed infrastructure and its inherent challenges is propelling visibility to the forefront, making it just as critical as capacity.

Kap: “When you’re working within so many different countries across four continents, that becomes a level of complexity… incredibly challenging for any IT organization.”

We’re partnering to invest in tools that make it easier for businesses to model, deploy, and scale global environments with confidence.

Jules: “We’ve got some very cool partner tools around visualization… to help customers model connectivity, gear, and how that kit will look and feel when it lands.”

We’re also deeply committed to the role of trusted advisors — partners who bring customers, solutions, and infrastructure providers together to create long-term value.

Kap: “We love when we can have a conversation that has that consultative approach… and take it back out to a 10,000-foot strategy.”

Jules: “Some of our most effective and happiest customers are those that trusted advisors have brought together Digital Realty and Zenlayer.”

Takeaway: Infrastructure visibility and coordination are now core requirements for scaling across regions. With the right tools and trusted partners, enterprises gain the ability to plan, deploy, and adapt with greater efficiency.

Looking ahead – futureproofing your enterprise IT strategy

The executive session closed on a shared vision: enabling enterprise IT leaders to adapt to changing demands with infrastructure that supports evolving workloads, global growth, and emerging disruptions like AI.

This partnership is built to scale not just in footprint, but in strategic alignment. With 600+ combined PoPs, 300+ data centers, and proven regional expertise, Zenlayer and Digital Realty are enabling global enterprises to deploy with greater speed, precision, and flexibility in every market they enter.

Kap: “The strategies are changing very rapidly, especially around AI… and what we’re trying to do together — and I think we’re doing it very successfully — is simplify and future-proof.”

Jules: “We make a very powerful threesome with trusted advisors. So many ways that we complement each other.”

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Want to learn how Zenlayer and Digital Realty can support your global deployments? Contact an infrastructure expert today!