Cloud Exchange has announced that it has teamed up with telecommunications giant, Huawei, to launch Africa’s first uptime institute tier IV modular prefabricated data center. The facility is located in Lagos, and Nigeria’s growing digital economy has driven its development.
Commenting on the unveiling of this new facility, Glad Dibetso, CEO of Cloud Exchange, said:“The tier IV data centre vision was born from the burning platform we were on in 2016. We had an audacious vision to build the first African Tier IV Prefabricated data centre certified by Uptime Institute.”
He added: “We wanted to be part of the solution by finding tailor-made solutions fit for purpose and pragmatic for the continent. Infrastructure, especially in ICT, has continued to hold the continent back. We knew that for Africa to fully participate in the future, we all need to improve ICT infrastructure as it is the bedrock of digitalisation.”
Dibetso called the company’s cooperation with Huawei “very fruitful” and commented on the speed with which it obtained market recognition and certification from the Uptime Institute. He called this recognition a “key step” for the company entering the IDC market.
In a statement, Huawei explained that Nigeria has the highest number of African Internet users and the tenth highest national figure globally, so, the need to meet demand is there.
Adding: “This rapidly growing digital economy has also driven the development of data center infrastructure. According to Xalam research, Internet Data Center (IDC) capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) was recorded at 230 MW in 2020, with an average annual growth rate of 30% over five consecutive years. And capacity is expected to balloon to anywhere between 350–450 MW by 2024. It’s this impressive potential that has attracted enterprises to invest in IDCs and build large-scale data centers in Nigeria.”
Glad Dibetso, CEO of Cloud Exchange
