Africa Data Centre is shelling out what it says is an unprecedented $500 million expansion spending to deepen connectivity on the continent.
Africa Data Centre, owned by Liquid Intelligent Technologies, plans 10 data centres in 10 countries over the next two years valued at over $500 million that is funded through new equity and facilities from leading development finance institutions and multilateral organisations, Mr Stephane Duproz, CEO of Africa Data Centres says.
“Examining Africa’s growth trajectory has allowed us to make investment decisions on new locations and confidently commit to expanding selected existing locations, resulting in the largest investment of its kind in history,” according to Duproz who says the continental expansion will also touch down on North African nations of Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt.
Duproz says industries especially likely to be buoyed by the expansion are the banking and growing fintech sectors, insurance and medical organisations, the public sector, hyperscale cloud providers and content providers.
Expansion to fuel positive economic growth, Africa Data Centre says
Africa Data Centres’ investment is a reflection of, as well as a catalyst for the continued direct foreign investment into the continent and the positive growth of local organisations, the company’s CEO says underscoring that the expansion will more than double its capacity on the continent.
“This allows multinational organisations to confidently enter the market, knowing their future growth is assured and they have access to open carrier systems to the rest of the continent. Additionally, without access to always-on, high-speed data centre facilities, the private sector cannot compete globally and will see slowed growth locally; equally important is the impact IT services have on the public sector – from healthcare to transport infrastructure.”
Duproz says industries especially likely to be buoyed by the expansion are the banking and growing fintech sectors, insurance and medical organisations, the public sector, hyperscale cloud providers and content providers. These industries, he says, are highly sensitive to data speed, security, guaranteed uptime and are exacting when it comes to reliability and trust in their providers. The SME market too, he says, has found a significant opportunity for growth by plugging into the digital ecosystems that data centres provide.
According to him, “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. Job creation is something we are passionate about at Africa Data Centres and the equation is a simple one: digitisation boosts economies, and successful digitisation requires data centres. Data centres are digital ecosystems, acting as magnets to organisations – and as the digital ecosystem grows within the data centre, so the local economy grows in the real world. The impact of a data centre is long-lasting, with immediate job creation stemming from the physical build and enduring economic growth once operational.”
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