The African Data Centres GigaWatt

For much of the past decade, data centers were one of the weakest links of Africa’s digital infrastructure, a market segment too small and too insular to be truly meaningful. No longer. African markets are witnessing an unprecedented wave of data center capacity build-out, driven by the awesome pressure to harness the explosive flows of data traffic sweeping the region, the gravity-like pull of network latency, and the rising but no less powerful demands for national data sovereignty.

Our new report on the state of the market says Africa’s commercial hosting capacity has surged and is now doubling every three years, so much that prospects of a 1GW live IT load by the end of the decade no longer seem outlandish. In many a market, available supply is barely keeping up with the pace of demand. Today, African data centers are among the most essential pillars of Africa’s emerging age of cloud.

But this growth has also unleashed a fresh set of questions around overbuild risk, likely hyperscaler destinations, Africa-adapted edge computing strategies, sustainability in the face of persistent power and water shortages, and overall investor value.

Our new report explores them all. See sample, contents, track opportunities and explore why data centers have become some of the most highly-valued assets in Africa’s digital infrastructure fabric.

Africa Data Center Report 2022