JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Vantage Data Centres is investing more than 15 billion rand ($1 billion) in its first African campus in Johannesburg, the U.S.-based company said on Wednesday.
The expansion underscores the rising demand for cloud services even in relatively undeveloped corners of the technology universe.
Vantage’s carrier‐neutral 80 megawatts-capacity facility will include 60,000 square metres of data space across three facilities in Johannesburg once fully developed, making it the largest in Africa, it said in a statement.
The first phase of the campus is slated for completion by the third quarter of 2022 and will be powered by its own on‐site, high‐voltage substation, Vantage added. It will be developed by Attacq, one of South Africa’s largest property developers.
“Johannesburg is the data centre hub for sub‐Saharan Africa due to its strategic location, IT ecosystem, fibre connectivity to the rest of Africa and the availability of renewable energy,” Antoine Boniface, the president of Vantage EMEA said.
For companies, having local cloud storage could save costs since they would be able to rent storage instead of building their own servers or relying on other countries.
The global provider of wholesale data centres will challenge Amazon.com Inc, which has also been expanding its presence in the emerging tech hub of Cape Town.
Microsoft Corp has also built two data centres in South Africa, one in Cape Town and one in Johannesburg, while China’s Huawei started building two data centres in South Africa in 2019.
($1 = 14.8603 rand)
(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla; Editing by Mark Potter)
