Africa Data Centers a pan-African technology group, has officially broken ground on an additional data center facility in Nairobi.
The new building will see the existing facility on the adjacent piece of land expanded up to an extra 15MW of IT load.
ADC’s expansion at the new site will be completed in the first half of 2024 and will bring five times more capacity than is currently installed.
“We believe that data centers will play a significant role in digital transformation and economic growth on our continent. Without them, the push towards a digital economy in Africa will be missing a key pillar. Our decision to increase our investment in our data centers in Kenya is in recognition of the position the country now occupies as a leader in the adoption of digital technologies in Africa” says Hardy Pemhiwa, Group President & CEO of Cassava Technologies.
“The expansion will enable 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 will enable customers to operate multiple deployments across our sites with a single operations team, campus, and infrastructure they are familiar with,” said Tesh Durvasula, CEO of Africa Data Centers during the ground-breaking ceremony.
Kenya is the country that pioneered mobile money, and today boasts of a wide range of incubators and tech startups, a clear sign of an innovative tech culture.
The focus on Kenya as a key region aims to take the region further into the digital era and uplift the country’s profile globally as an attractive investment destination for international cloud providers, hyperscalers, and other ICT companies.
The new data facility will begin with 5MW of IT load and will be built in Africa Data Centers’ leading-edge modular design – an innovative approach that sees the entire facility, including all critical plant rooms, prefabricated off-site. This ensures the highest possible quality, whilst local contractors will still benefit from contracts to lay foundations, assemble, and complete the build.
The ground braking is a step forward in the company’s expansion plans announced in 2021, which will see Africa Data Centers investing $500m into building hyperscale data centers across Africa with the support of the US Development Finance Corporation.
