Airtel plans to take data center arm Nxtra to Africa

Airtel has announced that it will be taking Nxtra, its data center arm, to Africa. Vani Venkatesh, Chief Executive Officer at Airtel Global Business, explained that the company already has 40 edge data centers in Africa, used for internal uses, as well as two submarine cables to Africa, 2Africa and Equiano. "As these cables will land, we are setting up five hyperscale data centers in Africa. We have every intent to grow Africa in a big way," said Venkatesh.

However, despite its expansion plans, the company acknowledged ongoing industry challenges: "We see some players [customers] starting to be slightly more measured about their spend. It's not that the network spending is becoming less, but maybe a tad more measured, especially with these macroeconomic factors."

Aside from macroeconomic factors such as supply chain disruptions and the recessionary environment, the company shared that customer demand is booming. According to Venkatesh, compared to three-to-five years back, there's been a multi-fold increase in the amount of data being transferred, with customers seeking near 100% Uptime across the four diversity paths. This means there's a higher responsibility for the company to make sure that the networks are upgraded and the delivery is robust. "We are scaling up dramatically to ensure we continue to meet the growing needs of our customers," said Venkatesh.

Nxtra, a joint venture between Airtel and Carlyle, has been exclusively operational in India, where it has 12 large data centers and 120 edge data centers.