 Welcome to JSA TV and JSA podcast the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Laura Nolan coming to you from beautiful Miami, Florida for Metro Connect USA 2022. Joining me now is Scott Willis president and CEO of Dark Points. Welcome to JSA TV Scott. Thank you Laura. I appreciate the opportunity. I appreciate you invite me on your on your show here. Wonderful. So I'm sure many of our viewers know about Dark Points but for our sake can you just give us a summary of what Dark Points is about and what you do. Yeah absolutely. So Dark Points we are a we are an edge data center provider so we we focus very much on delivering enterprise-based solutions into markets what we coin is underserved right and our definition of underserved is really smaller tier 2, tier 3 and tier 4 and then we're also very focused on deploying new data center sites as we take advantage of really our industry's movement towards edge and delivering interconnect and peering solutions into markets that again we coin is as being underserved so we're we're excited about the journey we're on and we're we're excited about where we sit in the market. Well hot off the presses Scott this morning Dark Points just announced its new digital next strategy. I had to make sure I read it right because it is hot off the presses. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Absolutely so when we started out on this journey when we first acquired Dark Points in in in March of 2020 it was really a vision about understanding where the market was moving and and moving workloads and applications to the edge and that's what that's what digital next is all about. It's about delivering a suite of services it's really built around co-location it's built around enterprise hybrid IT cloud and it's built around interconnection services and it's all built around delivering solutions to the market at the point of need or at the point of demand and that's really what this suite of services all about we had a we've had a vision when we when we built out our data centers and we've been when we've acquired our data centers where we want to overlay edge capabilities and that's what the digital next platform is all about. We're excited about it it's it's something that the market has continuously given us feedback and we are we're just now in the early stages of delivering that into the market and we're we're excited about the future. Congratulations and I'm sure we'll be hearing much more about that since the news was just freshly released this morning so we'll be talking about that for some time to come I'm sure and and Dark Points also recently launched its internet exchange first internet exchange in South Carolina so if you could Scott tell us more about what that means for the areas in South Carolina and maybe plans for other I X's. Yeah we're excited about this this is our first deployment of our initial I X we've got two more that are that are that are underway so you'll you'll be hearing more about that very soon as we get those deployed into the market. Listen today if you think about South Carolina they are absolutely 100% importer and exporter of digital infrastructure right and what that what that simply means is anytime there's a button pushed right or a keyboard clicked or or whatever triggers a digital command right that is pushed out of the state of South Carolina to be processed and it's delivered back into the state of South Carolina to be executed and we're going to eliminate that right so it's not a capability that doesn't exist in South Carolina today but what we want to do is we want to enable it locally and we want to create capabilities platforms and solutions for consumers in the state of South Carolina enterprise businesses in the state of South Carolina and government agencies in the state of South Carolina and we want to localize that data maintain that data in the borders of the state of South Carolina and and bring high performing interconnect solutions at a cost effective rate for the state of South Carolina and that's the same type of opportunity we want to bring into other states that are in a similar position so we're excited about it if you think about where the industry is and where edge workloads are eventually going to take place at a very local level delivering interconnect and peering capability is an important step in realizing the capability and delivering that into the market so we're again once again it's part of what we're excited about and it's part of our portfolio and dark points having a huge impact on changing the landscape for that area and then other areas as you continue to grow that initiative so the dark points press release this morning says the company is quote building tomorrow's distributed digital infrastructure while serving today's cloud and co-location needs so can you explain I guess more about the unique position that start points has in the marketplace based on that absolutely so this this is what what what we think about when we're when we're talking about today's needs with tomorrow's view in mind is we want to deliver compelling solutions right that meet the needs of enterprise today right we also want to anticipate right what where the industry is evolving how workloads are going to evolve and how how much further they're going to be pushed out to the edge and so we're building capabilities we're building solutions that has that set in mind and that's what digital nexus all about we can deliver and meet the needs of the enterprise today but we're also future proofing where we believe the inner that the industry is going to go in the future and we want to enable the enterprise to take advantage of that in a very seamless way so that again is is is at the basis of what digital nexus is all about well we've watched dark points grow tremendously the past two years under your your leadership with acquisitions and key strategic moves can you tell us what's coming up for 2022 yeah I mean to to the degree that I can listen this has been an exciting journey over the last couple of years I'm I'm excited about the space we're in I think we're in a great sector inside the industry in terms of not only the data center space but where we sit as as we're trying to take advantage of of of this emerging space into into edge and that's and that's something that we're very focused on and so when I kind of think about the journey right we've in the last 22 months or so right we've had three acquisitions we're excited about that it's given us a position into the market and in the way that we really think about growth as we as we're as we're as we're looking at dark points is we've really done some pretty deep analytical modeling and we've really looked at it where is need not only today but where's it going to be in the future right and that's churned out about 212 markets that we've identified where we feel there's going to be near-term need for edge capabilities and so that's that's how we think about our go-to-market strategy whether we build a data center or we look at it at a potential acquisition candidate it's all about delivering that capability into those underserved markets and so we're we're excited about what the last what the last couple of years has has been for dark points and and we're equally as bullish about the future and and we think the growth and investment will only continue I'm sure a lot of those topics came up here at Metro Connect as you're working with your industry colleagues here talking about some industry trends now what are the large enterprises that that you work with or will be working with need more of and then how do you meet that demand so you know listen we're still very much in in an emerging space within within edge right and so that's very consistent with how I've commented in the past right we are focused on meeting today's needs of the enterprise and and delivering solutions that are compelling and impactful to their business today right but we also want to be a provider that thinks about the future and understands how will workload shift right how will enterprise demand shift out in further into the edge and and if you understand that or anticipate that we can position dark points to take advantage of that to where we can provide those solutions to the enterprise and that's really what our approach is it's it's a mindset of meetings today's needs with a with a commitment to understand the future and delivering those those services when whenever that future evolves and gets here and that's what we want to be a part of well said well said so where can our viewers go to follow all the developments read more about the latest news that we talked about and the latest internet exchange as well that was was recent where can our viewers go to learn more all about dark points and more listen there's a number of different avenues but but the easiest way to really learn about dark points is dark points calm hit our website we're committed to keeping that is one of our main sales engines we keep it updated and of course there's there's certainly access from there to reach into dark points and have any type of conversation that you might want to have but yeah we're we're easy to find we want to provide the information and that's the best place to start all right you heard it right here dark points calm all right thanks for joining us here on JSA TV thank you Laura I appreciate it and thank you viewers for joining us here on JSA TV and JSA podcast happy networking