Page 30 - Energize March 2021

VIEWS AND OPINION

If Africa is to meet its digital potential,

the focus must be on data centres

by Jonathan Duncan, Schneider Electric

Africa is by far the most exciting region when it comes to digital growth. Every one of the continent’s
indicators points to massive demand for both connectivity and content. Sub-Saharan Africa’s
population is growing at 2,7% a year and could reach two-and-a-half billion by 2050.

frica’s young population is hungry for more, cheaper Internet access, as are
businesses. In the space of less than a year, Covid-19 has done more for digital
Agrowth than a decade of planning and investment ever could. Online demand
is soaring. One example is that of our e-commerce partner Jumia, which saw a 400%
increase in sales for essential items during the last half of March 2020 vis-à-vis 2019.
But it’s not all plain sailing. There are issues around high data costs and high
latency. And there are questions about network connectivity in-country, and away
from coastal areas. The one common denominator is the data centre, or often the
absence of data centres.
We need more African data centres. To give you an example of how few there are,
let’s compare the amount of data centre space available on the whole continent with
2
London. Last year, London’s data centre space was 260 000m ; in comparison, Africa’s
2
total space was estimated at 861 207m .
There’s also a challenge when it comes to the distribution of data centres across
the continent. Nearly half, 31 to be precise, of Africa’s 67 collocation facilities are based Jonathan Duncan
either in South Africa or Nigeria. Kenya follows with seven, and Morocco with five. The
irony of the Internet is that most African websites are hosted in Europe. a data centre. Power supply reliability is
another challenge; data centres need lots
Does it matter where a data centre is based? of power, and they don’t do well with power
The closer a data centre is to the user, the faster that user will be able to access outages. As the power quality improves
information and use services hosted at the data centre. The data centre’s location also across the region and power costs
impacts reliability. And as with any service, the more capacity that is offered, the lower decrease, there will be more confidence in
the cost will be. building local data centres.
Data centres are the basis for digital transformation. And we’re going to need many Smart players are already investing in
more data centres everywhere across the continent to power economies, speed up technologies which reduce power usage. A
connectivity and reduce the overall costs for server-hosted services. Tunisia-based customer Dataxion, runs the
There are two basic challenges when it comes to building tech infrastructure in largest collocation facility in North Africa.
many parts of Africa, especially outside South Africa and Nigeria. The first is funding. Working with Schneider Electric, they have
We need more investment, much more. The African Development Bank estimates that reduced their energy costs by 35%, which
the continent needs a total infrastructure investment of between US$130-billion and is no mean feat given that temperatures
$170-billion a year. Today, the financing gap is between $68-billion and $108-billion. often reach 34°Celsius in summer. Dataxion
We need to attract more private investment. The amount of money flowing into the uses the climate to their own benefit, by
data centre space has edged up this year – with one example being a deal in March, installing solar panels which provide a
when emerging-markets investor Actis bought the Rack Centre in Lagos and announced significant amount of power for the facility.
plans to invest US$250-million to buy and build African data centres. This will both cut power costs and make the
Given the potential for growth, one would think money would be pouring in. Africa’s data centre greener and more sustainable.
data centre market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12% There is huge potential for growth in
between 2000 and 2025, to hit $3-billion. And much of that demand will come from cloud Africa so we must start investing in data
adoption – 70% of organisations on the continent will move their data and applications to centres across Africa. n
the cloud by 2025. Data centre growth will be double-digit for the foreseeable future.
Another issue which must be addressed is energy and climate. North Africa is hot and Contact Sli Dumakude, Schneider Electric,
dry, whereas central Africa is humid. Both can pose particular challenges when building Tel: 011 254-6400, sli.dumakude@se.com

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