In an increasingly multicloud world, enterprises face significant challenges when connecting workloads across different cloud providers. Traditionally, establishing secure, high-speed connections between AWS and other cloud platforms required weeks of manual configuration, complex networking setup, and coordination between multiple teams. AWS Interconnect changes this paradigm by introducing the first purpose-built solution for seamless multicloud connectivity.
Announced at AWS re: Invent 2025, AWS Interconnect represents a transformative approach to cloud networking. It enables organizations to establish private, secure, high-speed connections between their Amazon Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) and other major cloud service providers, starting with Google Cloud. This breakthrough collaboration between AWS and Google Cloud opens new possibilities for enterprises pursuing multicloud strategies.
What is AWS Interconnect?
AWS Interconnect is a managed private connectivity service that eliminates the complexity of traditional multicloud networking. At its core, it enables customers to create direct, high-speed network connections between AWS and other public cloud environments without requiring physical cables, specialized equipment, or extensive manual configuration.
Rather than managing complex router configurations and physical interconnects, organizations select their source AWS region, choose their destination region on another cloud provider, and specify the required bandwidth. AWS and the partnering cloud service provider handle all provisioning and configuration automatically, delivering a working connection within minutes.
The service presents this infrastructure as a single logical object called an interconnect, abstracting away the underlying complexity of redundant physical infrastructure, networking protocols, and capacity management.
Key Features and Capabilities
Simplified Configuration
AWS Interconnect drastically reduces setup time from weeks to minutes. The configuration process involves just three simple steps: specifying the target cloud provider, selecting the destination region, and choosing the required bandwidth. Users can manage this entirely through the AWS Management Console or Command Line Interface (CLI), using tools and interfaces they already know.
Built-In Security and Encryption
All connections are private and encrypted using MACsec encryption between AWS routers and partner cloud provider routers. This ensures data confidentiality and integrity throughout transit. The physical infrastructure is managed entirely by AWS and its cloud partners, with no need for customers to expose their networks to the internet.
High Resiliency
AWS Interconnect leverages quad-redundancy across physically redundant interconnect facilities and routers. This architecture protects against multiple simultaneous failure scenarios and ensures high availability for business-critical applications. Both AWS and partner cloud providers engage in continuous monitoring to proactively detect and resolve potential issues before they impact customers.
Unified Management Experience
Customers interact with a single attachment point that represents network capacity to their chosen provider. AWS handles all aspects of physical infrastructure management, capacity scaling, and support operations. This unified approach eliminates the need for customer teams to coordinate directly with multiple vendors.
On-Demand Bandwidth Scaling
Once an interconnect is established, customers can increase or decrease bandwidth by simply modifying the connection attributes, without recreating the entire connection.
How AWS Interconnect Works
The architecture of AWS Interconnect differs fundamentally from traditional multicloud networking approaches. Traffic travels on the AWS global backbone until it reaches the AWS edge, where it’s handed directly to the partner cloud provider’s edge network. This direct handoff eliminates the need to route traffic through on-premises network devices or third-party virtual routers.
On the AWS side, the Direct Connect gateway serves as the attach point for AWS networking services, including Transit Gateway, Cloud WAN, and VPCs. On the Google Cloud side, the attachment point is the Google Cloud Router. Creating a new multicloud interconnect requires existing attach points on both sides.
The provisioning process involves two main actions: an initial create action initiated on either AWS or Google Cloud, followed by an accept action on the cloud that receives the connection request. Once completed, both cloud environments share a direct connection with dedicated bandwidth and built-in redundancy.
Current and Future Availability
AWS Interconnect launched in public preview following re: Invent 2025. During the preview period, customers can create a 1 1Gbps connection at no cost. During this phase, preview connections are not intended for production traffic.
At general availability, pricing will be announced, and preview 1Gbps connections will be removed from customer accounts. AWS and Google Cloud have collaborated on this solution with plans to extend it to additional cloud providers. Microsoft Azure integration is targeted for later in 2026.
Supported Cloud Providers and Regions
Currently, AWS Interconnect is available in preview across five AWS regions, with Google Cloud as the first launch partner. The service enables connectivity between supported AWS and Google Cloud regions, with expansion to additional regions and providers planned.
Use Cases and Benefits
Multicloud AI and Machine Learning
With 82% of enterprises anticipating increased multicloud demand due to AI services, AWS Interconnect addresses a critical need. Organizations can leverage best-of-breed AI services across cloud providers and maintain direct, high-performance connections between their environments.
Data Integration and Analytics
Enterprises running analytics workloads can now efficiently integrate data across cloud platforms without performance degradation. The managed connection ensures consistent, high-speed access to data repositories regardless of which cloud hosts them.
Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Organizations can establish backup and failover environments across cloud providers with the reliability and speed that modern applications demand.
Hybrid Cloud Operations
Companies maintaining operations across multiple clouds can now manage their infrastructure more efficiently, with reduced complexity and faster deployment times.
Data Residency Compliance
Businesses with data residency requirements can structure their infrastructure across multiple clouds while maintaining private, direct connections that don’t traverse the public internet.
The Open Specification Advantage
A significant aspect of AWS Interconnect is its foundation in open specifications. AWS and Google Cloud collaborated to develop API specifications that are openly available for other cloud providers to adopt. This approach promotes industry standardization and enables broader multicloud interoperability beyond just AWS and Google Cloud.
By publishing open specifications on GitHub, AWS and Google Cloud invite other providers to implement compatible solutions, fostering an ecosystem approach to multicloud connectivity rather than proprietary lock-in.
Industry Adoption and Endorsements
Major enterprises have already expressed enthusiasm for AWS Interconnect. Salesforce, for instance, highlighted how the service enables seamless integration between platforms without the friction of traditional networking approaches. The ability to establish private connections with the same ease as deploying internal AWS resources resonates with enterprises managing complex, distributed workloads.
Comparison with Traditional Approaches
Previously, connecting across cloud providers involved several manual steps and challenges. Organizations had to provision physical circuits or use virtual routing objects, manage complex networking protocols, coordinate with multiple teams, wait weeks for circuit provisioning, and maintain ongoing support arrangements across vendors.
AWS Interconnect eliminates these pain points through a fully managed experience that abstracts infrastructure complexity and reduces provisioning time from weeks to minutes.
Conclusion
AWS Interconnect represents a significant advancement in cloud networking. By introducing the first purpose-built solution for managed multicloud connectivity, AWS addresses one of the most pressing challenges in modern cloud operations. The service combines simplicity, security, and reliability—enabling enterprises to embrace multicloud strategies without sacrificing performance or operational efficiency.
As organizations increasingly adopt multicloud approaches driven by AI, data residency requirements, and the need for specialized services, AWS Interconnect provides the networking foundation necessary to make these architectures practical and manageable. With expansion to additional cloud providers planned and an open specification framework supporting broader industry adoption, AWS Interconnect signals the beginning of a new era in cloud interoperability.
