- OADC Lagos will become the largest data centre campus in W/Africa when fully built
Open Access Data Centres (OADC), a WIOCC Group Company has completed the first phase of its $150 million Data Centre facility in Lagos.
This world-class, OADC Lagos LOS1 is a purpose-built, high specification data centre, situated on a prime four-hectares site in Lekki, making it the largest data centre campus in West Africa,
The carrier neutral facility will deliver up to 20megawatts site load across more than 7,200m (square) of white space-sufficient for 3,200 racks.
Speaking to technology news editors in Lagos, Dr. Ayotunde (Tunde) Coker, the Chief Executive Office, OADC Lagos, said the facility with multiple carrier Points of Presence with diverse routes is part of the company’s milestone for Africa: a US$500 million-plus, multi-year investment programme that will strengthen key elements of the continent’s digital infrastructure.
The company has set 2026 target to complete the Lagos Data Centre campus. The company also plans to establish 30 Edge Data Centres in the region, TechEconomy can report.
Dr. Coker explained that OADC is massively developing its infrastructure to support and accelerate Africa’s digital transformation by constructing and operating a Pan-African network of world-class, client-centric data centre facilities.
He said that these fully connected Africa’s largest network infrastructure is specifically designed to meet the demands of telcos, ISPs, the cloud operator and wholesale community and major enterprises such as finance and governments.
He added that Lagos is at the forefront of the growth in demand for capacity and data storage in Nigeria, which has the largest population in Africa, the largest economy and is the continent’s largest telecommunications market.
Because OADC is part of the WIOCC Group and a sister company of carriers’ carrier WIOCC, the resulting converged open digital infrastructure enables OADC clients to establish interconnectivity across Nigeria and to other key locations in Africa by taking advantage of WIOCC’s Pan-African open hyperscale network infrastructure.
Mike Last, the Chief Marketing Officer, WIOCC Group, expressed delight with the significant progress OADC has recorded on the continent.
“In Nigeria, for instance, we started about two years ago and have made tremendous progress since then. We’ve got a flagship facility in Lekki. The Open Access Data Centres’ Lagos facility (OADC Lagos LOS1) is designed to be the most client-centric data centre in West Africa.
“We are happy to announce that OADC Lagos is a purpose-built, high specification data centre, situated on a prime four-hectare site in Lekki, making it the largest data centre campus in West Africa.
He said that the centre is built close enough to the capital city to support mirrored applications and has excellent communication, transport, and airport links.
Additionally, the facility provides on-site parking, private meeting rooms, work areas, and other amenities.
OADC’s Africa Spread
Meanwhile, Dr. Coker said OADC has also deployed a new core DC to serve the cloud ecosystem in Isando, Johannesburg. Configured with an initial 1,600 square metres of IT white space and up to 7MW of site load, OADC JNB1 has significant expansion capacity, enabling growth in line with client demand to 3,000 square metres and 15MW.
Two new OADC DCs in Cape Town are coming up, one is online in Rondebosch, the second at Brackenfell.
Both facilities have been configured with an initial 1,000+ square metres of IT white space, can be scaled up to 800+ racks as demand grows and have site loads of up to 5MW and 3MW respectively.
To meet the growing demand for world-class, carrier-neutral data centre services in Durban and across the wider KwaZulu Natal region, Phase 2 of OADC Durban became operational around mid-December 2022, adding a further 110 racks at this strategically important facility where the international 2Africa submarine cable which landed in January 2023.
“There has been a significant amount of work we’ve been doing, not just here, but across Africa and globally. I believe we have a unique value proposition for Africa, and Nigeria is a significant anchor point of that. We have to unlock the potentials of this market for the world to behold.
“So, Open Access Data Centres (OADC) has been established to transform the provision of data centre services in Africa, based on proven, long-standing data centre expertise, strong existing relationships with clients in Africa and well-established delivery capabilities across the continent. Nigeria will be an even more important part of that. Our strategy is very comprehensive. We want to lead the Africa connectivity. OADC is one of the partners with the Google Equiano that was launched here last year.
“We have a facility in the Cape Town (South Africa), ​Accra (Ghana), ​​Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire), Cape Town (South Africa); facilities in Durban and Johannesburg in South Africa; Kinshasa (DRC), Lagos & multiple cities in Nigeria coming up soon; there is an OADC facility in Mogadishu (Somalia), Mombasa and Nairobi, both in Kenya.
“It’s really quite comprehensive connectivity capability, and truly driving Hyperscale Open Access across Africa”.
Summary: Customers can now host with OADC Lagos data centre facility. Its facilities are strategically located throughout the African continent, focusing on key locations for connectivity in each country. OADC is operating data centres at key cable landing stations for the new multi-Terabit per second Equiano and 2Africa subsea cable systems now under construction around Africa. The deployment of these cables is transforming connectivity in Africa, and by establishing world-class, open-access facilities at these strategic interconnectivity points, OADC is enabling the creation of vibrant ecosystems of cloud operators, content providers, application providers, telecoms operators and other businesses.
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