This partnership aims to foster growth, enhance connectivity, and expand digital services across new markets in Africa.

LINX Nairobi, the region’s first interconnected, multi-site Internet Exchange Point (IXP), is scheduled to go live in the coming weeks. The technical specifications of the platform align with LINX’s designs in the UK and the US, providing redundancy and resilience for network peering.

Expansion of Digital Connectivity in East Africa

Kenya, with its rapidly growing fibre connectivity, is uniquely positioned to serve the entire East Africa region. The well-connected submarine cable network in Kenya offers pathways to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, making it an ideal location for LINX Nairobi.

Benefits for Africa Data Centre Customers

With the inclusion of LINX Nairobi at the Africa Data Centre’s NBO1 facility in Nairobi, customers will gain direct access to the LINX Nairobi peering community in Kenya through a single cross-connect. Additionally, they will benefit from LINX’s around-the-clock support and portal access.

Strengthening the Digital Ecosystem

Networks connecting to LINX Nairobi from various data centre locations will have the opportunity to establish peering arrangements, fostering a robust digital ecosystem and promoting localized traffic exchange.

Industry Expert Insights

Nurani Nimpuno, Head of Global Engagement for LINX, expresses the significance of LINX Nairobi as a hub for Kenya and East Africa. The new interconnection point will cater to the region’s growing demand for low latency, high-speed, and improved connectivity, attracting both local and international providers.

Tesh Durvasula, CEO of Africa Data Centres, emphasizes the value of the LINX partnership and the enhanced interconnection options it brings to their customers. The collaboration underlines the company’s growth and momentum, reinforcing its commitment to creating a strong ecosystem.

Advantages of Effective Interconnection Strategies

Durvasula highlights the importance of an effective interconnection strategy for businesses operating hybrid cloud models. The distribution of workloads and the efficient handling of network traffic between data centres, cloud providers, and end-users require reliable and high-speed connectivity. The partnership with LINX ensures businesses in Africa can connect globally while keeping their data within their own borders.

The collaboration between Africa Data Centres and LINX in bringing LINX Nairobi to the NBO1 facility demonstrates the commitment to driving digital transformation and connectivity in East Africa. 

The introduction of this new interconnection hub will contribute to the growth of the region’s digital ecosystem, attracting local and international networks while providing enhanced interconnection options for Africa Data Centres’ customers. 

The strategic partnership paves the way for a more integrated and resilient network infrastructure in Africa, supporting businesses in their journey towards digital excellence.

Speaking on the company’s Pan-African Interconnection partnership focused on exploring opportunities continent-wide, Tesh Durvasula, CEO of Africa Data Centres, noted that the goal is to add value to local network communities, LINX membership and data centre facilities across Africa.

Recent research on the ICT ecosystem by Accenture revealed that Africa is on the brink of a tech explosion. The consulting firm says certain countries are on a particularly rapid trajectory. For example, by 2050, the share of the economy powered by the internet (the iGDP) in Kenya, Morocco, Senegal and South Africa will be approximately 6%, similar to where the US is today. While others, like Ghana, are set to reach between 4 to 5% iGDP, comparable to Brazil’s present level.

Data centres are the foundation of economic growth on the continent and without them, sustainable and self-sufficient ICT ecosystems cannot be developed. This is why the company announced the largest expansion plans Africa has ever seen in September 2021, that will see Africa Data Centres investing $500 million into many new hyperscale data centres across the continent.

“Building new facilities is the one path that Africa can take to address the growing need for storage and networking that are crucial to digitising Africa and bringing digital services to its citizens,” adds Durvasula.

Africa Data Centres is Africa’s largest network of interconnected, carrier- and cloud-neutral data centre facilities and currently services nine facilities in six countries, he explains. As leaders in the market, the organisation is constantly announcing new builds in existing markets, as well as plans for facilities in markets that are currently under-serviced or have no facilities at all.

Similarly, LINX is an expert in its field of delivering redundant and resilient interconnection solutions at their global Internet Exchange Points (IXPs). Durvasula emphasises that the new partnership is the recipe for great things to enhance connectivity and digital services in new and emerging markets across Africa.

Nurani Nimpuno, Head of Global Engagement at LINX says: “We are excited to be working with Africa Data Centres on this journey into new markets across Africa. The data centre giant has the largest hub of interconnected facilities on the continent, making it the ideal partner to serve the growth and demand predicted in the ICT sector and opening up fantastic opportunities for countries across Africa, and making digital services a reality for hundreds of millions of citizens.”

Africa Data Centres, a business of Cassava Technologies a pan-African technology group, is pleased to announce it has partnered with TechAccess, to implement a Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solution.

DCIM software is used to measure, monitor and manage all of the IT equipment and supporting infrastructure housed within data centres.

As the solutions integrator for the project, TechAccess is responsible for the software, hardware, integrations, project management, professional services and other project deliverables that make up the DCIM platform.

These will come from two vendors. First is data centre optimisation software from EkkoSense, and next is an asset management platform from Assetspire. The solution will be deployed in Africa Data Centres’ two sites in Johannesburg, and its facilities in Cape Town, Nairobi and Lagos.

According to Tesh Durvasula, CEO of Africa Data Centres, the goal of this DCIM implementation is to provide Africa Data Centres site administrators with a holistic view of each facility’s performance to ensure that all resources, such as energy, equipment and floor space, are used as efficiently as possible.

“This will assist Africa Data Centres and its partners to gain critical insights into their operations, with direct and instant access to real-time data at the click of a button. When combined with analytics, these insights will enable our customers to realise a wide range of savings in terms of time, money and increased productivity,” he adds.

“We are delighted to be working with Africa Data Centres in implementing a DCIM solution that delivers exceptional insight into their assets and operations,” says Jaxon Martin, CTO for TechAccess.

Martin says that as data centres evolve over the next few years and net-zero initiatives become increasingly mainstream, data centres have to find ways to adapt and become more energy efficient and responsive to customers’ demands.

Net-zero involves cutting greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible and creating a state in which greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere are balanced by their removal out of the atmosphere, by oceans or forests, for example, Martin explains. “We aim to deliver next-generation DCIM together with our partners Assetspire and Ekkosense through innovative and industry-leading analytics and machine learning, giving our customers such Africa Data Centres a true, competitive edge.”

EkkoSense‘s CEO, Dean Boyle, says: “Across the industry, leading data centre operators such as Africa Data Centres are under pressure to deliver escalating digital workloads while cutting energy usage and securing carbon savings at the same time.

“To help them achieve this balancing act, our EkkoSoft Critical AI-powered data centre optimisation solution is helping the data centre giant to meet these challenges. We are delighted to be working with the TechAccess team on this important project for Africa Data Centres.”

Assetspire is thrilled to have been selected as part of the next-generation DCIM being deployed across Africa Data Centres estate along with its partners, TechAccess and EkkoSense, comments Steve Beber, the company’s Founder and CEO.

“We aim to provide accurate, centralised visibility of all critical building assets, combining lifecycle asset information with intelligent data from existing technologies and those being deployed,” adds Beber. “This will generate an intelligent, digital twin for operationalising, managing and reporting on all business assets.

Beber says where outdated, traditional DCIM has failed for data centres in the past, the combination of smart Spire software and EkkoSoft Critical will succeed, by offering two mature, trusted, best-in-class solutions that harness the best of hardware and software, to deliver immediate value.

In conclusion, Durvasula says Africa’s data centre industry is booming, with a wide range of greenfield projects already set in motion across the continent. “The African data centre market is expected to realise investments of over $5 Billion US dollars by 2027. This is driven by various factors, such as cloud adoption and increased connectivity across the continent, as the gap in the digital divide is slowly narrowed. DCIM can help the industry realise savings and efficiencies that are key to helping these investments succeed.

Let me start by wishing you a very productive New Year. Would you tell our readers a little bit about life/working in this mission-critical industry?

We have witnessed a digital explosion over the past 30 years across a range of sectors, including financial services, healthcare, and entertainment. Everyone has benefited in some way from digital infrastructure. I personally have found this digital transformation intellectually stimulating, and facilitating this digital world is at the heart of everything Africa Data Centres does.

African Data Centres achieved many feats in 2022, but which of these was most significant for you?

Africa Data Centres’ parent company, Cassava Technologies, has the vision that no African should be left behind in the digital revolution.

With this in mind, we are focusing on building a digital economy to ensure that Africans are brought up to speed with their international counterparts; and we are tremendously pleased about what we have managed to accomplish thus far.

With more than 4000 people in its workforce, Cassava Technologies is a large-scale employer.

From an Africa Data Centres perspective, we are already operating in four countries, and in these regions are helping many entities, including financial services firms, healthcare firms; and big telecommunications equipment providers to take up residence in our facilities and I’m really proud of that. In addition, we’ve announced further expansion into Rwanda and Ghana and soon, North Africa as well.

In addition, we recently broke ground in Kenya for a second facility in Nairobi. A distinguished audience attended the ceremony, including the US Ambassador to Kenya, Meg Whitman  , and more than 120 delegates and dignitaries from the local Kenyan government and the media. It was one of the most well-attended events in recent history because the potential is clear to everyone.

Despite these accomplishments, I’m most proud of our people. When we talk about leaving no African behind, that’s a big task and everyone who joins Africa Data Centres, has been very focused on that. We all take a great amount of pride in achieving the company’s goals.

What are the things Africa Data Centres is doing differently that attract all these customers? Our readers would want to know those things.

We are building a pan-African network of vendor- and carrier-neutral data centres across multiple cities and countries in Africa. To do this state-of-the-art technology and best practices are key.

One way in which we are trying to drive the cost of our construction down is by using fewer natural resources, particularly, less water.

We have prohibited the use of adiabatic systems, and only use closed-loop systems that use no water at all, alleviating any burden on water and sewer systems in the regions in which we operate.

We’re trying to lower our PUEs (Power Usage Effectiveness), which is the electrical efficiency ratio within each data centre.

Power remains one of the greatest challenges in many of these markets. If you’re in South Africa, you would understand what load shedding is. In other parts of West Africa, simply getting the power to your facility is a big part of the challenge.

However, despite these challenges, our differentiating factors have enabled us to build high-quality facilities. Another way we distinguish ourselves is through our people. Many of our employees have come from our sister company Cassava Technologies or Liquid Intelligent Technologies. Liquid is a large operator of fibre optic networks within Africa, which means we have two key advantages.

Firstly, we have people that know how to build data centres across multiple countries. Secondly, they are not afraid of a challenge. Anyone who has done cross-country, cross-continental construction, will be well versed in the difficulties, and our people have built up expertise in this area.

From a commercial point of view, we make it as simple as possible for our customers to sign up, get started with us, and move in. So, the facility, the quality of the construction, and the people who are responsible for the commercial element, set us apart.

Do you think we are prepared for the storage needs of the future?

So, let me answer this question in three parts. From the commercial perspective, the economic perspective, and the supply and demand perspective, there’s no question that we need more capacity across the continent. There are not enough towers, not enough fibre, not enough data centres, and not enough connectivity. We need more, and we need it everywhere. This is why you’re seeing such a big inflow of capital coming into markets like Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco, Egypt, South Africa, Rwanda, and Angola.

If you go across Africa, you’ll notice a lot more Western, European, and Middle Eastern capital coming into the market. In terms of infrastructure, what we are talking about is dear to my heart. Data brings us together.

The reason data brings us together is that the more infrastructure we have, the more we are able to empower people to get a proper education, and to further enrich their lives. And when you have broad-based infrastructure across multiple jurisdictions in a market, you can, at least, prepare for unforeseen catastrophes such as the recent natural disasters in Turkey.

It’s just awful, the devastation. But if you’ve moved to cloud computing, what happens is those infrastructures are redundant, and all of your data is backed up elsewhere, enabling the business to remain operational even in the event of a tragedy or disaster.

With the cloud, your systems will still operate, and your cellphone will still work. This will enable you to contact your family, which is very important, or to contact search and rescue to get help if you need it. It is for these reasons that we need more infrastructure, but unfortunately, this infrastructure is still lacking in many markets in Africa.

And while citing the example of a natural disaster is not the way we like to think about things, it is important to consider the position you would be in, and how isolated you would be, if your phone was unable to work during a disaster, and in the aftermath. This is why we need to stress the importance of infrastructure.

On the positive side, Africa currently has a population of over 1.4 billion, about 60% of which is under 25. We also have hundreds of millions of what I call the restless youth between 18 and 35 years of age, who are highly educated, and want to do things differently from the way their parents and their grandparents did in Africa. They’re artists, they’re designers, they’re journalists, they’re doing things their own way, which requires abundant resources.

As the opportunities for entertainment, for banking and healthcare services, and more continue to blossom, the infrastructure continues to grow, Africa needs more.

The investment is coming; it would definitely help us in times of need as we are seeing but what we’re looking forward to, is a bright future.

What are the biggest challenges facing data centers today?

I think the biggest challenge is that every country has a different operating model. What we do in South Africa will not work in Kenya, and what we do in Kenya will not work in Nigeria. Africa has very different cultures and government structures, so the same rules do not apply to all. We already have the issue of power supply, and to build a data centre you need three things – a suitable piece of land, connectivity, and power.

The connectivity problem has been addressed to a large extent, with a wide range of great companies offering effective connectivity solutions. However, the power problem will remain the challenge of the decade, but it’s not just an African issue. North America, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe are all dealing with the same problem, Regulators and politicians have failed to take care of the planet, have almost exhausted its resources, and have not upgraded the necessary infrastructure. Exacerbating the fact is that we all use a lot more electricity than we did in the past.

A decade ago, we would plug in one device. Today, we all plug in an average of five devices. When you multiply this by eight billion people on the planet the extent of the problem becomes apparent.  You can understand the problem. Our power providers were not forward-thinking, and this will remain the biggest challenge going forward.

I would say labour is the final challenge. Many skills are just developing in Africa so we more universities and education centres are needed to teach data centre operations, telecommunications, networking, storage, and to broaden knowledge in these types of fields. As long as we need all these jobs, and we can direct  all these resources towards that.

Africa Data Centres plans to build 10 data centers in Africa; are you sticking to that plan or you’re modifying it?

So far, we have announced ten  and we are sticking to it. We are currently operating in four countries, and by June, we will be adding another three to the list, one of which is Rwanda. You can expect further announcements about other regions, including North Africa, soon.

As a breakdown, we initially said ten countries in five years. It might be six in the next three, and ten in the next five years. We already have many data centers in Africa already; some of which are edge data centres.

So, what are the signs Africa Data Centres is seeing in this market that give the confidence to continue to invest?

There are three main angles to this. Let me focus on demand. We want to be in the markets that have the largest Gross Domestic Product, which are Angola, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Morocco, and Kenya, so any savvy investor would want to get into these countries immediately.

The second one is population. There are more users in those markets compared to the others, but you also have lots of countries with large populations which are also high target areas.

The need by application and software companies comes in as well. We are seeing more activities from Netflix, Google, and from Meta in those markets, and many people are on-boarding on their platforms as connectivity is getting better.

Everyone with a higher disposable income enjoys sitting and watching movies and other digital content with their family. So, I believe these are elements that are driving the success of Africa Data Centres and other data centre companies.

In reference to your earlier submission: operating environments across Africa differ. But, do you think there are policies Africa must pursue to attract and retain investments in the data centre market, especially in the spirit of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)?

Yes, this is correct. Most countries have some sort of ICT initiative and they have a minister or a department or two working on ICT issues. This is a good sign, as they are aware that things need to improve.

However, you need some real regulation around data protection.

The Western world looks at Africa as if it is just one country. It is a continent with 54 very separate countries, with at least 41 different currencies, and each country has unique strong, cultural, and tribal traditions.

Therefore, Africa cannot be treated as one. However, from a data protection point of view, if they could join forces to solve this challenge, it would enable people to move data from one country to another securely and with ease, which would benefit all African countries. However, I don’t think we’ll see the African Union approving that anytime soon.

I would also love to see an African Union with one currency, but again, I don’t see that happening in the foreseeable future.

So, in the meantime, I would love to see the Ministers of ICT of the countries come together and implement similar policies around data protection and data residency across the continent. If they managed to formulate a GDPR-type standard, then I think it would open up many opportunities for African countries.

In other words, if today the AU decides to review the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), they should be able to incorporate some of these things.

Something that ensures cyber security and guarantees that each citizen has privacy, and is still commercially viable in so far as it allows for free trade to a Western standard or European standard, would be beneficial for all countries.

Tesh Durvasula Biography:

Tesh Durvasula is an experienced technology and real estate industry executive with a 25-year track record of successful leadership and value generation in the digital infrastructure sector. He has broad experience through all elements of business, including finance, real estate, development, operations, technology, marketing, and sales. 

Durvasula served in a variety of executive roles at CyrusOne initially as the company’s chief commercial officer, responsible for sales, marketing, and strategy.  He drove value for the company and its investors through a combination of rapid sales growth and mergers and acquisitions.

Durvasula led the acquisitions of data centre providers Sentinel and Cervalis, as well as the data centre assets of the financial trading campus of CME Group – the three transactions had a combined value of over $1 billion. His strong record of value creation and scaling the organisation, helped Cyrus go from an initial investment of $525 million to its eventual outcome, acquisition by KKR for $15 billion.

He was then appointed president of Europe for the company, where he oversaw the company’s expansion into England, Ireland, France and Germany, which saw the organisation grow into one of the largest publicly traded REIT’s in the US. Finally, Durvasula was appointed CyrusOne’s chief executive officer, and during his tenure at the company, annual revenue grew from $221 million in 2012 to over $1 billion in 2020. 

Throughout his career he has specialised in implementing growth strategies for internet infrastructure businesses. Prior to joining CyrusOne, he was chief marketing and business officer for Quality Technology Services, which IPO’d as a REIT, QTS Data Centers.   At QTS Durvasula created and executed the company’s go-to-market strategy, paving the way for evolution from privately held company to equity-backed organisation to IPO, and then eventually acquired by Blackstone for $10 billion in 2021.   

He was previously chief marketing and business officer for Telx, a colocation and interconnection provider.  He joined the company by way of acquisition, when Telx and the REIT Digital Realty Trust acquired the interconnection businesses and data centre business, respectively, of NYC-Connect, a New York City based data centre and interconnection provider founded by Durvasula.  Before founding NYC-Connect, he held management positions at Abovenet, Sprint, and Metromedia Fiber Networks.

Durvasula is a graduate of Syracuse University, with EMBA work at Columbia University and Stanford University.  He lives with his wife and three sons in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he has been a youth football coach for over ten years and has been involved in charities dedicated to homelessness, and youth athletics.   

Africa Data Centres, a business of Cassava Technologies a pan-African technology group, is pleased to announce it has secured a piece of land adjacent to its existing data centre in Nairobi, Kenya, and plans to expand the facility up to an extra 15MW of IT load. The build will be completed in the first half of 2024 and will bring five times more than the current capacity.

According to Hardy Pemhiwa, Group President & CEO of Cassava Technologies, “Colocation has become the foundation of African digital transformation and will be for the foreseeable future. Our investment into expanding our data centre operations in Kenya is in line with the increasing demand that we are experiencing due to the significant increase in the adoption of digital services in the East African region”.

The new data centre will begin with 5MW of IT load and will be built in the company’s leading-edge modular design.

This innovative approach sees the entire facility, including all critical plant rooms, prefabricated off-site to ensure the highest possible quality. Local contractors will be used to lay foundations, assemble, and complete the build.

In terms of cooling, Tesh Durvasula, CEO of Africa Data Centres, says the company has a strict policy that has banned the use of adiabatic systems. “We do not use water in any of our cooling systems and are one of the few colocation providers who have taken this step. Although many believe water and adiabatic systems are more efficient than air cooling systems, this is not the case. With the newest technology, if free-cooling capacity is maximised, it becomes far more efficient and saves water which is becoming a scarce commodity”.

Additionally, the expansion will allow Africa Data Centre clients to grow and scale depending on their requirements. They can start small, increase to a medium capacity, and even benefit from a hyperscale type of deployment in a few years if they choose to. “This is very reassuring for customers, as it brings a lot of synergies by enabling them to operate multiple deployments across Africa Data Centres sites with a single operations team and a campus and infrastructure they are familiar with,” says Durvasula.

Customers will also benefit from fast access to the cloud and managed services within the diverse ecosystem and increased external network options, thanks to Africa Data Centres’ extensive connectivity partners. In addition, sustainability is top of mind for all initiatives undertaken by Africa Data Centres. Therefore the company always tries to optimise the topology of its electrical infrastructure and selects the best and most efficient solutions to drive down its Power Usage Efficiency (PUE) and maximise energy efficiency.

Africa Data Centre is fortunate in Kenya because nearly 70% of grid power is sourced from green energy. This helps the company meet its sustainability objectives because no company can achieve zero carbon emissions on its own.

This latest announcement is a step forward in the company’s expansion plans announced in 2021, which will see Africa Data Centres investing $500m into building hyperscale data centres across Africa.

Breaking of ground for the expansion is an integral part of ADC’s Pan African expansion plans, as Kenya is a crucial market in Africa and a gateway to the entire East Africa region.

“It is an exciting time for Africa Data Centres,” says Tesh Durvasula, the company’s CEO. “Our decision to build a data centre in Kigali was an easy one, given Rwanda’s robust economic recovery post the COVID-19 pandemic and the Government of Rwanda’s focus on digital transformation”.

This latest announcement adds to and complements our existing investments in Rwanda and elsewhere in East Africa. We will work closely with both public and private enterprises in Rwanda to ensure that they can harness the benefits of our data centre facility to enable the provision of digital services that Rwandan citizens need,” added Hardy Pemhiwa, Group President & CEO of Cassava Technologies.

According to Durvasula, “This new data centre brings three main benefits to the market – global standards, high quality of service and affordability. In addition, enterprises will achieve cost savings associated with building and maintaining their own facilities”.

Although Rwanda is a landlocked country in East Africa, there is stable network connectivity and infrastructure connecting it to Uganda and from there to the Kenyan coast into Uganda. Africa Data Centres will ensure that Rwanda becomes part of their ecosystem in East Africa by connecting the new data centre to their site in Nairobi

Speaking of the need for colocation services in the country, Durvasula says the local enterprise market is eager to benefit from Africa Data Centres’ colocation services and a stable data centre environment. “They will also be able to make the most of global connectivity through a range of global service providers and cloud service providers”.

Ultimately, Africa Data Centres wants to extend the same experience to clients in Rwanda as it does in other countries by building a world-class ecosystem to which the Rwandan market can connect.

This partnership will allow Treten’s customers access to the cloud and infrastructure they need to realise their digital transformation goals.

Treten Networks offers specialist business advisory services that provide advanced network and security solutions, helping its customers in both the private and public sectors do business more securely and efficiently. 

In addition to its existing services, Treten will now leverage Africa Data Centres’ physical infrastructure and ecosystem of connectivity partners to support cloud deployments for its customers.

Both organisations aim to solve customer’s business challenges with this partnership by providing sustainable game-changing technologies and solutions.

Operating the continent’s largest carrier-neutral data centres, the Africa Data Centre has access to tens of thousands of connections to cloud, content, and network providers from Africa and across the globe. As a result, Treten’s customers will reap the benefits of connecting directly with secure, low latency connections to key providers and business partners.

“The last two years have proven that access to cloud infrastructure is imperative to ensuring that African businesses grow their revenue and can compete with companies in the European and US markets. In addition to benefits like low latency and compliance with data storage laws, the proliferation of data centres on the continent is a vital ingredient to ensure the easy availability of cloud services locally,” said Tesh Durvasula, CEO of Africa Data Centres.

Treten’s customers in every industry have accelerated their journeys to the cloud, and as they have done so, they have accepted the reality that hybrid cloud and multi-cloud strategies are here to stay. 

Together, Africa Data Centres and Treten can provide organisations with secure private infrastructure and access to hyperscale cloud providers through numerous interconnections and exchanges.

“Africa Data Centres is unquestionably the largest network of interconnected, carrier and cloud-neutral data centre facilities on the continent, and furthermore provides expert quality and next-level service crucial to our datacenter needs,” says Karo Esemitodje, Head of Cloud Services from Treten Networks. 

“From the reliable uptime on facility, cooling, state-of-the-art monitoring, and expert level security in the LOS-1 DC facility, Africa Data Centres is the industry leader by leaps and bounds. 

“The amount of detail they deliver daily in all areas is why Treten Networks chose Africa Data Centres as our partner for our digital future. As a result, all our data centre needs have been addressed.”

Treten Networks is rapidly expanding its footprint with its bespoke cloud service offerings, including compute, storage, networking, backup and recovery, and so much more. “We already boast of an extremely low latency and the fastest cloud service in Nigeria, and we look forward to a long and mutually beneficial partnership with Africa Data Centres”.

In closing Karo Esemitodje from Treten, says that through the partnership with Africa Data Centres his organisation will meet and surpass the expectations of its clients. “As the leading cloud service provider in Nigeria, our vision is to be the premiere customer-centric cloud provider of choice, enabling enterprises to meet their business goals”.

The business of Cassava Technologies, a pan-African technology group, will leverage subsequent disbursements from DFC to broaden its data centres footprint in other DFC-eligible African countries. 

ADC is executing an ambitious plan to build data centres in ten of Africa’s largest economic capitals, including Abidjan, Accra, Lagos, Cairo, and Casablanca. And to existing data centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town, further cementing ADC’s position as Africa’s largest operator of a pan-African network of interconnected carrier-neutral data centres.

Commenting on the expansion of the data centre operations in South Africa, Tesh Durvasula, CEO of Africa Data Centre, said, “The increasing demand for cloud and other digital technologies on the continent has directly increased the demand for African data to reside within the continent. This means Africa needs more data centres. We are pleased that our data centre expansion programme in South Africa funded by DFC will cater to the growing demand in the country”.

“This investment by DFC follows our recent announcement of the USD 50 million investment by C5 Capital into Cassava Technologies and a partnership to build Cyber Security Operations Centres across six markets in Africa. Through these investments, Cassava Technologies is building Africa’s digital infrastructure to enable accelerated economic development and ensure a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind,” said Hardy Pemhiwa, President & CEO of Cassava Technologies.

“Africa has unrealised economic potential that will be unlocked by this investment from DFC. We look forward to working closely with DFC to overcome Africa’s digital infrastructure deficit and accelerate the adoption of cloud services and digital applications across all industries, further making the continent a competitive destination for international investment,” concluded Pemhiwa.

The new 20MW facility will cover 15,000 square meters in eight data halls and is situated on the northern periphery of Cape Town’s city centre.

Tesh Durvasula, Chief Executive Officer of Africa Data Centres says there is a clear pipeline of demand for colocation space that cannot be served by the existing Diep River data centre. “The new Cape Town facility is a critical part of Africa Data Centres expansion drive in the area”.

The site is located in a secure business park that is well served by two major national roads, the N7 and M12, and is close to Cape Town’s city centre, the V&A Waterfront harbour, Cape Town International Airport, and is within easy reach of the facility’s existing Data Centre in Diep River.

As volumes of data in South Africa grow, so does the demand for the capacity to store and process it. “This is why Africa Data Centres has such ambitious expansion plans in the region. As Africa’s largest and leading network of interconnected, carrier- and cloud-neutral data centre facilities, we are continually working to provide the infrastructure to help companies achieve their digital goals.”

Several regions are experiencing high data centre demand in Africa, and data centre capacity has more than doubled in the past few years. South Africa is leading the charge and is now brimming with new projects.

Moreover, Durvasula says, “Hyper-scaler cloud providers have been eyeing the region for some time, with Amazon opening its first African cloud data centre in South Africa in April 2020. In addition, Google Cloud recently selected Africa Data Centres as the first location for Google Cloud Interconnect in Africa”.

Cape Town is the number two data centre market in South Africa and currently has a connectivity ecosystem made up of several colocation data centres and a wide range of cloud service providers and networks.

Research estimates that the market for data centres in Africa is expected to reach between US$3 billion and US$5 billion in the next four years, growing at a compound annual growth rate of between 12 and 15%, depending on the report.

South Africa remains the largest data centre market on the continent, with a thriving data centre industry, and has been ranked number 25 globally by Cloudscene based on data centre density.

Over and above bringing digital services to Capetonians, the facility will create a wide range of job opportunities through the provision of digital services and hiring local contractors and workers for the builds, from entry to high-tech level.

The Cape Town build is currently in the initial design phase, with work set to start on site in the last quarter of 2022. Completion is scheduled for the end of 2023.

The new facility will lay the groundwork for the company’s hyper-scale partners to expand digital services and solutions to more countries in West Africa and will make Africa Data Centres the largest provider in West Africa, with facilities in Nigeria, Togo and now Ghana.

According to Tesh Durvasula, Chief Executive Officer at Africa Data Centres, the Accra operation is a significant milestone for Africa Data Centres and highlights the massive growth opportunity the company sees for its business in the region and the continent. “We are witnessing an unprecedented demand for digital services, apps, broadband, cloud technologies, and more, all of which are seeing data demand soar to unimagined levels.”

The 30MW facility in Accra will play a significant role in leading the charge for hyper-scale customers to deploy digitisation solutions to West Africa. “This new facility will be a giant leap forward in our ambitious long-term plans to close the digital divide in Africa by bringing digital services to more businesses and people. We chose Accra as our next location since there is an existing high demand from hyper-scalers, cloud operators and multi-national enterprises to digitally transform West Africa,” Durvasula states.

In addition to bringing digital services, the data centre will create numerous job opportunities through the digitisation of the economy and hiring local contractors and workers for the builds, from entry to high-tech level.

Speaking further, Durvasula said: “Many exciting innovations have their home in Africa, and numerous startups are raising billions to debut disruptive models across a wide range of sectors. Moreover, with Ghana being the second-largest economy in West Africa, it also is an attractive investment destination for international tech giants that want to expand their footprint in the region”.

Seamless connectivity is key to helping Ghanaian businesses and citizens reap the rewards of the digital disruptions happening across West Africa. However, the lack of necessary infrastructure has resulted in slower growth than the rest of the world.

Opening a data centre aligns with the organization’s expansion plans and is timeous as the government in Ghana has been introducing innovative and forward-thinking digital projects over the last few years. Although there has been significant growth in the past few years, many Ghanaian citizens remain without digital services.

As the largest network of interconnected, carrier- and cloud-neutral data centre facilities on the continent, “we are continuously working to provide the infrastructure to reduce this digital divide. Being a business of Cassava Technologies, we intend to play a significant role in bringing to Ghana the necessary digital and infrastructure services required to support the mass adoption of digital services in the country and the wider continent.”

Africa has never seen plans like this before, Durvasula ends. “The Africa Data Centres team aims to build many interconnected, cloud- and carrier-neutral data centres across the length and breadth of the continent in an unrivalled $500m investment in Africa’s digital transformation.”