As the need for digital services accelerates, fresh projects are being unearthed around the continent
According to a recent report published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), since 2010, the number of Internet users worldwide has more than doubled, while global Internet traffic has expanded 20-fold.
As developers continue to push the boundaries and design more sophisticated digital technology such as cloud computing and machine learning to help businesses in their pursuits, organisations must lean into this phenomenon lest they get left behind. As a result, strong growth in demand for data network services is expected to continue; mobile data traffic is projected to grow rapidly (quadrupling by 2027); and demand for data centre services is poised to rise.
Over the coming decade, with the onset of 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT), the metaverse and more, the nature of data centre demand is likely to evolve, noted the IEA, as calls for low-latency computing increases the need for edge data centres.
According to Mordor Intelligence, this demand could see the global data centre construction market register an impressive CAGR of 13.47% between 2021 and 2026. Africa, with an expanding youthful population, growing network penetration and ensemble of ambitious businesses keen to partake in the digital revolution, will represent a strong chunk of this growing market with some reports suggesting data centre investment on the continent could reach US$5bn by 2026. Indeed, hardly a day goes by without an announcement from organisations jostling to compete in this budding market coming to the fore.
Never far from the spotlight, Raxio Group has continued its unrelenting pan-African expansion by marking the start of construction for two new facilities on the continent.
The first, a Tier III carrier-neutral colocation data centre located in Kinshasa, DRC, was kick-started in a formal ground-breaking ceremony attended by members of government, members of the media, customers and senior representatives from the company.
Raxio noted that connectivity in the country is undergoing a transformation due to the arrival of subsea cable landings and the expansion of inland terrestrial and metro fibre networks. To contribute here, Robert Mullins, CEO of Raxio Group, commented, “It is our aim that the DRC’s first Tier III carrier-neutral data centre will provide a critical and missing part of the country’s digital infrastructure. This will facilitate internet traffic amongst content providers locally and internationally, making the internet experience faster, more resilient, and more affordable for all digital users.”
Expected to be commissioned at the end of 2023, Raxio DRC is designed to a ‘metro-edge’ international standard, with capacity to deliver 1.5MW of IT capacity and accommodate approximately 400 racks using the latest technology.
Read the full article in the latest issue of African Review here.
