The Atlantic Pacific Research and Education Exchange (AP-REX) is a pilot project that is supported by Internet2 and Pacific Wave (a project of Pacific Northwest Gigapop and CENIC) to support global science research and scholarship through coordinated infrastructure, service integration, and collaborative outreach. 

The collaboration pilot includes a 100 gigabits per second (Gbps) interconnection between US East and West Coast exchange points to enable a more seamless service integration. Support teams from Internet2 and Pacific Wave are coordinating the operations and collaborative planning of the exchanges.

The AP-REX collaboration pilot includes an express 100 Gbps interconnect of Pacific Wave, WIX, and MAN LAN on a dedicated optical path from California to Virginia, with backup paths via the Southern and Northern US, creating robust high-capacity interconnection between these five exchange point locations. 

The new path will interconnect the existing 100+ Gbps connectivity within Pacific Wave and MAN LAN/WIX to enable trans-national and trans-continental research traffic bursts. Both the Asia Pacific Ring and the Advanced North Atlantic collaborations, as well as other transit across the US, will be able to take advantage of this new interconnect. 

Pacific Wave operates international exchange points in Los Angeles, California; Sunnyvale, California; and Seattle, Washington. Internet2 operates the MAN LAN international exchange point in New York City and the Washington Internet Exchange (WIX) in McClean, Virginia. 

These five locations are key interconnection points where global research networks from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Pacific Islands, and South America connect to North American networks such as CANARIE in Canada, CUDI in Mexico, ESnet and Internet2 in the U.S., as well as to each other. 

As the AP-REX collaboration pilot evolves, the teams will also seek additional opportunities for automation and simplification of service provisioning.