Africa Data Centres has announced plans to build 10 “hyperscale” data centres in 10 African countries in the next two years at a cost of more than US$500-million (R7.2-billion).
ADC, which already operates data centres in South Africa, Kenya and elsewhere in Africa, plans to expand into Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt for the first time, it said on Friday.
The expansion is being funded through new equity and facilities from development finance institutions and multilateral organizations, said CEO Stephane Duproz. This includes equity and loans from parent company, Liquid Intelligent Technologies.
He said industries especially likely to be “buoyed” by the ADC data centre expansion project are banking, fintech, insurance and medical, the public sector; hyperscale cloud providers, and content providers.
“We have already begun to acquire land in the selected countries and plan to roll out very quickly to meet the needs of our existing and new customers,” Duproz said in a statement. “This is just the beginning for us. The expansion will more than double Africa Data Centres’ already significant footprint on the continent.”
Interconnected
“Our experience from across the continent is that the strategic value of data centres has both immediate and long-term effects on the economy and the communities they serve. Digitisation boosts economies, and successful digitisation requires data centres.”
All the data centres ADC operates, including the 10 new facilities, will be interconnected, Duproz said. It will continue to offer carrier-neutral data centres, meaning they are not aligned with any one telecommunications operator.
Afriwave Telecom
It not clear if ADC will include Ghana in the 10 new projects, but the prospects exist as the sole interconnect clearinghouse (ICH) in Ghana, Afriwave Telecom recently opened its doors to partnerships across the continent by joining Smart Africa Alliance.
Afriwave said, on that occasion, that it looks forward to collaborating with other players in the space, like ADC, not only to drive affordable telecom interconnect services, but also make its data centers available for a complete suit of other service at affordable rate to players across the continent.
