Africa Data Centres, which is part of pan-Asian Cassava Technologies Group, has announced that it will be building a second data centre in Cape Town, South Africa.
The data centre facility will have 20 MW of capacity, and covers 15 000 square metres across eight data halls located on the northern periphery of Cape Town city centre. The facility is now in the initial design phase, and work is set to start on-site in the fourth quarter of 2022. Africa Data Centres plans to complete construction of the facility by the end of 2023.
Tesh Durvasula, Chief Executive Officer of Africa Data Centres, noted that Africa Data Centre’s expansion into a second data centre was a necessary move to accommodate increasing demand for colocation space which could not be met by the existing Diep River data centre. He added that “the new Cape Town facility is a critical part of Africa Data Centres expansion drive in the area.”
Ambitious Expansion Plans in the Region
The data centre facility is located in a secure business park which is in close proximity to two major national roads, the N7 and M12, as well as Cape Town’s city centre, airport and harbour. In addition, the Cape Town facility is also strategically located near Africa Data Centres’ existing facility in the Diep River.
In a press release statement, Africa Data Centres observed that the expansion was necessary to meet growing rates of data adoption in Africa, with increasing demand for data storage and processing services. Durvasula explained that “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.”
He also affirmed hyperscalers’ increasing interest in investing in Africa, saying that “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.”
Africa Data Centres noted that Cape Town was a prime location for investments in the data centre industry. Currently, Cape Town is the second largest data centre market in South Africa, and has a connectivity ecosystem made up of several colocation data services, and a wide range of cloud service providers and networks.
In the press release statement, Africa Data Centres also added that research estimates that the market for data centres in Africa is expected to reach between US$3 billion and US$5 billion over the next four years, with a compound annual growth rate between 12% and 15%.
Africa Data Centres’ announcement of plans to build a second data centre in Cape Town follows an earlier announcement made by the company to build a 30 MW data centre facility in Ghana to enable its hyperscale partners to expand and push their digital services to more countries in West Africa.
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