The new African data centre company Open Access Data Centres (OADC) has announced a USD 500 million, multi-year investment programme to construct and operate a network of more than 20 carrier-neutral, GreenStar and Uptime Institute Tier III accredited data centres across Africa, optimised to serve the needs of the cloud provider and wholesale community. OADC, a WIOCC Group company, will deploy data centre facilities strategically throughout the continent, focusing on key locations for connectivity in each country.
OADC said it will aim to deliver an exceptional client experience, from initial contact to consultative development and deployment of future-proof solutions tailored to clients’ specific needs and to world-class, ISO-certified standards.
OADC has already started construction of its first two data centre facilities, sited in Africa’s largest markets: Nigeria and South Africa. Rapid progress is being made on deploying OADC Lagos on a four-hectare site in Lekki, the largest data centre campus in West Africa. The first phase will be ready for clients from early 2022, and when fully operational this USD 200 million, Tier III certified data centre will support up to 20MW site power load across more than 7,200 m2 of white space, sufficient for up to 3,275 racks and making it one of the largest facilities on the continent outside South Africa. In addition, the site power load is fully scalable to 40MW as market demand grows. The Equiano submarine cable will be landing directly in the data centre, which is also close to all other major subsea cable landings in Lagos.
OADC’s Durban facility is also under construction, and will house the cable landing for the Durban branch of the 2Africa submarine cable. It is also designed to Tier III standards and the proximity to Durban CBD makes it ideally located to be a key component in Durban-based companies’ primary colocation and disaster recovery solutions.
In addition to offering direct and completely diverse international connectivity through the new 2Africa submarine cable, which will interconnect 33 countries in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Pakistan and India, OADC Durban will also offer connectivity into South Africa’s terrestrial fibre network, including direct access to the NLD5 and NLD6 terrestrial fibre routes stretching 1,700km between Durban and Cape Town along South Africa’s southern coastline, and to the NLD1 fibre route direct to Johannesburg. The initial phase of OADC Durban will be ready for clients in early 2022. When fully operational, the data centre will offer more than 2,200 square metres of white space, with a further 2,000 square metres of A-grade office space also available on-site.
A third OADC facility is being deployed in Mogadishu, Somalia housing the cable landing for the Mogadishu branch of the 2Africa submarine cable and offering a range of colocation services to domestic and international businesses. OADC Mogadishu will be open to clients before the end of 2022.
All OADC facilities will operate as fully open-access, carrier-neutral facilities, supporting cloud providers and the international wholesale community in extending their businesses further into Africa. All major fibre network providers will be present in the facilities, and new dedicated diverse fibre routes will be available to existing data centres and internet exchange points (IXPs).
