Today, the University Computing Center (Srce) hosted a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Croatian Internet eXchange (CIX). The celebration was opened with welcoming speeches by the Minister of Justice, Administration and Digital Transformation Damir Habijan and the Director of Srce Ivan Marić, and was attended by numerous representatives of CIX members, the academic community, the economy and media representatives.
In the introduction, Director Marić held a presentation entitled "CIX - 25 years of free connectivity", in which he recalled the beginnings and reasons for its establishment and gave a detailed overview of the development and operation of CIX over all these years, as well as the role and significance of Internet exchange points. "CIX is a national common good of interconnection, supporting not only Internet traffic for the past 25 years, but also the values of the Internet itself: openness, decentralization and cooperation. Recognizing CIX as critical infrastructure is not a symbolic gesture. It is a technical necessity", emphasized Director Marić.
Then, a very interesting panel discussion was held on the topic: “The Future of the Internet Starts Locally: The Role of CIX in Digital Sovereignty”. The panelists were Damir Habijan, Minister of Justice, Administration and Digital Transformation, Ivan Bešlić, Chief Strategy Officer from Sofascore, Boris Drilo, Member of the Management Board of Croatian Telecom, Nataša Glavor from CARNET, Tonko Obuljen, President of the HAKOM Council and Ivan Marić, Director of Srce, and it was moderated by Dragan Petric, Executive Editor of BUG magazine and tech influencer.
The panelists agreed that cooperation between representatives of all parts of the economy, the private and public sectors, the academic community and regulators is necessary in order to ensure the decentralization, security and sustainability of the Internet in the future. CIX, which Srce, as the central infrastructure institution of the academic community, has been taking care of for 25 years, ensures digital sovereignty and is a critical infrastructure that provides end users with a better Internet experience. Everyone faces the task of further cooperation on regulation, which should be based on the principles of ensuring equal access to technology, security, protection of end users, but also enabling further development. Compared to other countries, Croatia has already done a lot in the field of digitalization and should continue in this direction.
The Croatian Internet eXchange (CIX) is a Croatian center for the mutual exchange of Internet traffic (Internet eXchange Point - IXP) established in 2000, when on September 8, AT&T Global Network Services Croatia, the Croatian academic and research network CARNet, Croatian Radio Television, Croatian Telecommunications, ISKON Internet and VIP-NET signed the Memorandum on the establishment of CIX. The first "operational" members of CIX were CARNet and ISKON Internet.
The CIX is a central point for establishing direct communication channels between Internet service providers in Croatia. Its purpose is to avoid unnecessary traffic through third-party networks, improve the quality and security of communications, and reduce the costs of Internet service providers exchanging data with each other.
As part of this service, Srca experts design, build and maintain the CIX network infrastructure, which is distributed in three locations in two cities, implement new network services for the needs of CIX members, and provide support to CIX members and the work of the CIX Forum.
Since 2008, CIX has been a full member of the European Internet Exchange Association (Euro‑IX), whose goal is to promote a culture of open exchange of ideas and experiences among its members. The second location of CIX was established in Zagreb on June 1, 2016 in the Digital Realty ZAG1 data center. In May 2025, the third headquarters of the Croatian Internet Exchange (CIX) was put into operation in the DC North data center in Varaždin. Additional distribution of CIX's network infrastructure increased CIX's resilience and availability, and CIX's members were provided with even better service quality, as well as reliability and flexibility.
The importance of CIX was recognized in the National Cybersecurity Strategy in 2015, and accordingly Recommendations for the use of the national node for the mutual exchange of Internet traffic were drawn up and published, with a special focus on the advantages of its use from the aspect of security of Internet traffic exchange.
Since April 2025, CIX has been aligned with the recommendations of the Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) association, whereby Srce continues to contribute to a safer Internet, and the most important recommendations are preventing the spread of incorrect information in routing and protecting the peering infrastructure. To prevent the spread of incorrect routing information on route servers, CIX uses IRR (Internet Route Registry) and RPKI (Resource Public Key Infrastructure) validation.
Since its inception, more than 1 EB of data has been transferred through CIX, and 322.7 PB of data was transferred in 2024 alone. Currently, CIX has 40 active members.
