Under this partnership, UniCloud Africa will host its enterprise-grade sovereign cloud and Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure within OADC’s world-class, carrier-neutral facilities in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa.

This collaboration establishes a robust, localised foundation for governments and enterprises to modernise their operations while ensuring absolute data residency and regulatory compliance.

Advancing the “One Cloud, One Africa” Vision

The partnership aligns with UniCloud Africa’s “One Cloud, One Africa” strategy, which seeks to eliminate the high-latency and compliance risks associated with offshore cloud providers.

By utilizing OADC’s Tier-III certified infrastructure, UniCloud Africa provides a high-performance environment for mission-critical workloads, supported by a contractual Tier-III certified uptime SLA.

“Our mission is to provide the definitive foundation for Africa’s digital and economic independence,” said Dr. Krish Ranganath, CEO of UniCloud Africa. “By hosting our sovereign infrastructure within OADC’s world-class facilities, we are ensuring that African data remains on African soil. This partnership empowers our clients with low-latency access, local currency billing, and the security of ISO-certified, in-country data management that is tailor-made for the continent’s unique requirements.”

A Multi-Market Digital Backbone

OADC’s extensive footprint provides UniCloud Africa with the scale needed to serve key economic hubs:

• Nigeria: Leveraging OADC Lagos’s campus to support the country’s booming fintech and enterprise sectors
• DRC: Providing much-needed local cloud capacity in Kinshasa to drive the nation’s digital acceleration
• South Africa: Utilising OADC’s expanded national footprint and distributed scale to deliver resilient, geographically separated primary and disaster recovery solutions

“We firmly believe that fully localised cloud infrastructure is critical for economic growth and Africa’s digital future,” added Dr Ayotunde Coker, CEO of OADC. “OADC is committed to providing the essential building blocks for a truly unified African digital ecosystem. Partnering with UniCloud Africa allows us to support a platform that is driving the next wave of innovation, from AI acceleration to cost-predictability.”

Empowering the Next Wave of Innovation

Beyond standard infrastructure, the partnership will support the deployment of UniCloud’s GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS), enabling local organisations to harness the power of AI, Machine Learning, and Big Data at scale.

With zero data egress fees and billing in local currencies, the collaboration removes the financial barriers often posed by global cloud giants.

Hosted by the Nigerian Network Operator Group (ngNOG) and the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), the forum attracted government officials, industry leaders, and technology experts committed to enhancing digital connectivity in Nigeria.

In his opening remarks, Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, emphasized the critical role of internet connectivity in driving Nigeria’s economic growth and development.

Represented by Ganiyu Oseni, senior adviser on Technology, Broadband & Innovation, Governor Sanwo-Olu reiterated the Lagos State Government’s commitment to fostering digital inclusion and expanding infrastructure.

“Digital connectivity is not just a tool for communication; it is a catalyst for economic transformation,” Oseni said on behalf of the Governor. “We are committed to supporting initiatives like ngPIF that push the boundaries of digital infrastructure and bring the benefits of connectivity to all Nigerians.”

The two-day forum featured a series of panel discussions and workshops, with participants focusing on key topics such as peering, interconnection, data centers, and the role of government in creating a conducive environment for digital innovation.

Prof. Wale Adedokun, National Coordinator of ngPIF, underscored the forum’s mission to bridge Nigeria’s digital divide, particularly between urban and rural areas. “The essence of ngPIF is to foster collaboration among stakeholders to ensure internet resources are more accessible and affordable across Nigeria,” he told journalists.

Muhammed Rudman, CEO of IXPN, echoed the sentiment, emphasizing the importance of rural connectivity to ensure that all citizens can access the digital economy. “The government’s support is crucial for expanding internet access in underserved areas, particularly through mechanisms like the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF),” Rudman explained.

In addition, Ayotunde Coker, CEO of Open Access Data Centre (OADC), highlighted ngPIF’s role in building a robust peering community that includes infrastructure providers, content creators, service providers, and policymakers.

“This forum has evolved into a vibrant community dedicated to advancing Nigeria’s interconnection and peering infrastructure, putting the country on the global digital map,” Coker remarked.

As Nigeria continues its digital transformation, ngPIF remains a vital platform for stakeholders to collaborate, innovate, and shape the future of the country’s internet landscape.

This marks a significant milestone in the company’s mission to sustainably establish and operate world-class, client-centric data centre facilities in South Africa and across the continent.

Dr Ayotunde Coker, CEO of OADC, commented,

“This certification reflects our dedication to meeting and exceeding international standards in data centre operations. It reaffirms our commitment to deliver the highest level of reliability and uptime, suitable for mission-critical applications and services.”

Tier-III design certification signifies that OADC Isando has been designed to ensure high availability and redundancy, with multiple distribution paths for power and cooling, as well as concurrently maintainable infrastructure.

Representing the Uptime Institute, Tarik Bahanniss, vice president, Africa, stated,

“We are pleased to award OADC Isando with the Tier III Certification of Design Documents, the first step toward the important Tier Certification of Constructed Facility award.  This certification reflects OADC’s dedication to global standards, beginning with the first set of design documents criteria set forth by Uptime Institute.”

Spanning over 3,000m² of technical space with a site load of 12MW, OADC Isando has emerged as a formidable hub offering scalable solutions tailored to meet the evolving needs and performance requirements of clients.

As a truly open-access and carrier-neutral facility, strategically located adjacent to major fibre routes, it provides a gateway to an extensive selection of onsite providers and metro connectivity to key data centres in the Johannesburg area.

“OADC Isando is not just a data centre; it is a comprehensive, vibrant interconnected digital ecosystem and a strategic partner for clients seeking reliable, secure and sustainable infrastructure and connectivity solutions,” added Dr Coker. “We remain committed to providing our clients with services to support their business growth and success.”

Digital Infrastructure South Africa

OADC provides a unique core-to-edge proposition within South Africa, with four Tier-III facilities and 30 edge data centres.

Its facilities provide open-access to over 20,000km of terrestrial fibre, 16 terabits-per-second (Tbps) capable national and metro networks, and to the eight subsea systems connecting South Africa over multiple routes to Europe and Asia.

This extends data storage, processing and content delivery to the network edge, supports improved application performance and allows critical data to be processed locally.

The edge data centres are located within major business and connectivity hubs. They are carrier-neutral and open-access.

With the best power rates in the industry, OADC is the fastest-growing data centre company in Africa.

Effective immediately and based in Lagos, Nigeria, Dr Coker will lead OADC in its support and acceleration of Africa’s digital transformation by constructing and operating a pan-African network of Tier III certified data centre facilities as well as a unique core-to-edge open-access edge data centre ecosystem, made up of hyperscale, regional and OADC edge data centres, according to Capacity media, report.

“This is a dynamic period for businesses in Africa, with transformation driving rapid expansion of the continent’s digital infrastructure. I am excited to be joining OADC, which is set to play a huge role in establishing and growing the pan-African digital infrastructure and cloud ecosystem that will underpin this expansion – supporting cloud operators, content providers, the wholesale community and major enterprises in extending their reach and operations across the continent,” said Dr Coker.

“I am delighted to be leading OADC in transforming Africa’s digital capabilities, driving its deployment of a network and vibrant ecosystems of world-class, open-access digital infrastructure at strategic interconnection points throughout the continent. An opportunity for Africa to leapfrog the world.”

Dr Ayotunde Coker enters the role with 35 years of international experience across Europe, USA, Asia and Africa. For the last eight years he has served as CEO and managing director of Nigerian data centre provider, Rack Centre.

Prior to this, he worked as managing director and CEO of emerging markets payments, West Africa, at Rack Centre and before this as group CIO of Access Bank.

“I am absolutely delighted to welcome Tunde as CEO of Open Access Data Centres at this critical period in the company’s development,” said Chris Wood, CEO of WIOCC Group.

“Having secured $200m in funding at the end of 2021, we are now engaged in transforming Africa’s digital infrastructure with the most extensive deployment ever in Africa of open-access national, regional and edge data centres. Tunde’s depth and breadth of experience and leadership, together with his stature and contacts in the African data centre industry will, I’m sure, be instrumental in ensuring the company’s success.”

During his career he also held roles in UK including Ford, Cap Gemini, eMCSaatchi UK, Egg Bank, British Petroleum and the UK Ministry of Justice.

In addition, Dr Ayotunde Coker is the current president of the Africa Data Centres Association and served as chair of the UK Government Enterprise Architecture Board.