Executive Summary

The Asi@Connect NREN community in 2025 is a maturing collective shaped by widening service portfolios, growing technical depth, and uneven but visible progress on governance and sustainability. The headline findings of this edition:

• Staffing among 2025 respondents shows wide variation — from small teams of fewer than ten to networks employing well over two hundred. Across the 15 NRENs with comparable 2018 baselines, total community staffing grew +146% over the seven-year period, with DrukREN's 44× expansion (3 → 131 staff) the most striking transformation in the cohort.
• Government funding remains the backbone of NREN revenue, but client-institution revenue has emerged as a substantial second pillar in 2025, signalling a shift toward more sustainable hybrid and self-financed models.
• Connected institutions continue to broaden: across the consistent 15-NREN panel, non-school connections grew roughly 21% (3,252 → 3,920) between 2018 and 2025, led by a nearly five-fold rise in research-institute links (23 → 110) and steady growth in government-organisation connections (183 → 272). ThaiREN’s school-system connections (~10,000) dominate the schools segment.
• Highest delivered bandwidth has crossed the 100 Gbps threshold at REANNZ, SingAREN and ThaiREN; CERNET and MAFFIN reach 40 Gbps; and several others now operate at 10 Gbps — placing the community at a credible regional frontier.
• Core services (IPv4, network monitoring, troubleshooting, IPv6, eduroam) remain near-universal in 2025, while identity federation and security services show clear growth from 2020. eduGAIN connectivity rose from 5 to 7 NRENs, each of which also operates a National Federation (a prerequisite for eduGAIN), so operational National Federations grew in step from 5 to 7. The community's Identity Provider population nearly doubled (620 → 1,219) and Service Providers grew similarly (138 → 273).
• Advanced services tell the most dynamic story: implementation rose by 32% from 2020 (82 → 108), with a substantial planned pipeline of 46 additional implementations. REANNZ, reporting for the first time in 2025, already lists eleven implemented advanced services — among the highest in the community.
• AI is now visible in the community: 16 of 19 reporting NRENs use AI in some capacity, with MAFFIN, NREN (Nepal), PREGINET and SingAREN reporting the most intensive adoption (50–100% of activities).
• Research engagement spans the region: 20 economies took part across the eight APAN meetings tracked, with participation peaking at 357 delegates (APAN55). Japan leads cumulative attendance (341, lifted by hosting APAN 59), followed by Thailand (256, lifted by hosting APAN 57) and South Korea (210).
• Network traffic has scaled sharply: total community traffic reached 30,658 TB (~31 PB) in 2025 — nearly triple the 2018 level of 10,386 TB — with JAPAN and CERNET the largest carriers, at roughly 16,400 and 4,800 TB.