I’m a Proton Unlimited user living in Melbourne (and I have friends in Indonesia and Malaysia). The current latency when opening mail folders, loading Drive files (Linux client please), or starting a chat is around 150 ms because the nearest edge is in Europe. That extra “thinking” time hurts productivity, especially on mobile networks.

Opening an email from the Proton Mail servers in the Android app takes nearly 15 seconds.

A local edge in Australia (or Singapore, which is a stable, centrally‑located hub for the whole region) would bring round‑trip times down to < 30 ms for metadata look‑ups and reduce upload/download latency for larger files. The result would be a snappier, and a far more responsive experience for all APAC users.

Because Proton’s zero‑access encryption keeps the content unreadable to anyone, the main privacy gain is reduced metadata exposure and compliance with regional data‑sovereignty expectations (e.g., Australian government and enterprise policies that require data processing within a stable APAC jurisdiction). A Singapore edge also aligns with the PDPA, which is compatible with Proton’s privacy philosophy.

The APAC market (Australia, New Zealand, SE Asia) is growing fast in privacy‑conscious adoption. Even a modest increase of 2 000–3 000 new Lumo Plus/Visionary subscriptions would offset the estimated AU $400‑$600 k yearly operating cost of a small edge cluster. Offering a faster, region‑specific service could be a strong differentiator against competitors that rely solely on US/EU data‑centres.

Start with a metadata‑only edge (quick to deploy, low cost) and monitor latency improvements. If demand rises, extend to regional blob storage for Drive and add a secondary fail‑over node in Tokyo. A phased rollout lets Proton validate ROI while keeping the user experience excellent from day one.

I’d love to see this on the roadmap and am happy to participate in any beta testing or provide further feedback. Thank you for listening!