Open Access Data Centre (OADC) launches edge facility in South Africa

Open Access Data Centre (OADC) has announced the launch of a new data centre facility in South Africa. This, according to the company, is the first-of-its-kind data centre in Africa, and is the first phase of a larger, cross-continent rollout of the OADC edge environment.

The OADC facility is located in Durban, South Africa. It comprises 5 MW and 2,200 square metres of white space, and serves as the landing point for a branch of the 2Africa submarine cable. The next phase of the cross-Africa rollout will be an edge facility in Lagos, Nigeria. The company has said that it plans to build in at least 20 countries on the continent in addition to these two, including Somalia, Accra, Ghana, and Kenya.

The upcoming Lagos facility will have 20MW capacity at launch, and be scalable up to 40 MW in response to customer demand. At an investment cost of $150 million USD, the Tier III certified data centre will encompass 7,200 square metres of white space, which can accommodate up to 3,275 racks.

Bob Wright, CTO of OADC, explained the importance of deploying an edge strategy for Africa. “In recent years, Africa has seen massive investment in hyperscale data centres focused on the continent’s largest metropolitan areas. However, a presence in a single data centre is no longer sufficient to address a country or region.”

“5G operators, ISPS and fibre operators are seeking cost-efficient ways to extend network reachi into new markets, requiring network equipment to be securely housed in remote locations.”

OADC’s strategy isn’t just to build separate edge facilities across Africa, but to consolidate edge computing and data centres with hyperscale connectivity in a single ecosystem. With this, the company hopes to accelerate business opportunities for its clients, providing secure, low-latency, remote data storage for companies looking to expand into new markets.

Low latency transmission is foundational to a number of advanced technological applications, including IoT, streaming, and gaming. Edge data centres provide end users with a superior experience by processing large volumes of data efficiently and without delay – improving reliability, availability, and network performance.

CTO Bob Wright continued, “OADC is building Africa’s edge data centre infrastructure to support clients seeking cost-effective network extension, and those who are changing their infrastructure deployment strategies to fulfil demand for content closer to the network edge – for improved availability and premium performance – or to optimise networking and storage costs by pre-processing data locally.”

Open Access Data Centres (OADC) was formed by the West Indian Ocean Cable Company, which is itself a part of the West Africa Cable System, Europe India Gateway, and Telecom Egypt North. Last November, the company announced that it had raised $200 million USD in funding from CAPE IV, a fund managed by private equity firm African Capital Alliance (ACA). Chris Wood, CEO of WIOCC, noted, “The creation of a new Group company – Open Access Data Centres – offering a transformational data centre proposition ot the market will underpin and accelerate the evolution of cloud ecosystems in Africa, delivering the low-latency, high-performance capabilities increasingly demanded in Africa’s markets.”