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Data centres: the secret weapon

in Africa’s silent race for digital

independence

hen people think about are vulnerable. The truth is that the These IXPs are another of Africa’s
digital infrastructure in fastest apps in Africa aren’t built real success stories, keeping traffic
WAfrica, they often picture better; they’re hosted better. Consider local and nurturing home-grown
the new subsea cables landing on our YouTube’s early rollout of local caches ecosystems. But if they remain tied to
shores. And those cables, including in Kenya and Nigeria. It wasn’t a new a single location, they risk becoming
2Africa, Equiano, and PEACE, are indeed feature or design change that made tomorrow’s bottlenecks. This is why
headline-grabbing. But the real story is the difference, but the simple act of many of them are expanding across
less about who lands the biggest pipe hosting content closer to users. multiple facilities, ensuring that no
and more about what happens once single site dominates a country’s traffic.
the data comes onshore. That story is This is what innovation looks like in
about latency, and right now, Africa is practice, and it means that African From silent race to strategic choice
in a quiet but critical race to shape its users and businesses don’t pay the The next phase of Africa’s digital
latency future. price of distance. growth will be driven by AI-powered
workloads that can’t tolerate delay.
Latency is about far more than The infrastructure race goes Running these workloads offshore is not
speed. It’s about the cost of delivery, deeper than cables only inefficient, but it also undermines
the reliability of services, and how The cable landings are only the start. sovereignty and trust. By bringing
willing users are to stay engaged. A What matters next is how those new compute power closer to the edge,
few hundred milliseconds of delay routes connect to the continent’s data Africa can unlock new industries,
doesn’t sound like much, until you centres and exchange points. Without protect sensitive data, and ensure
realise that an e-commerce site that interconnection layer, traffic resilience against external shocks. This
hosted overseas can take up to continues to hairpin off-continent makes Africa’s silent race about more
1,000 milliseconds longer to load even if there’s unused capacity just than just speed. It’s also about control,
than one hosted on the continent, a few kilometres away. The good independence, and competitiveness,
potentially losing customers who are news is that we’ve seen progress in which will require partnerships among
fed up waiting. Latency has tangible this regard. Intra-Africa east-west governments, regulators, and the
economic outcomes. terrestrial routes are boosting speeds private sector. This means:
between coasts and also providing • Policy clarity on data residency to
Innovation, the African way resilience when multiple subsea encourage local hosting.
African innovation has never been cables fail. • Incentives for public platforms to be
about having the best app or code. served from within Africa.
It’s been about solving complex Neutrality has also become a • Support for community-led IXPs to
problems with ingenuity – delivering strategic advantage. Africa Data spread resilience beyond capital
access where infrastructure is weak, Centres’ carrier- and cloud-neutral cities.
affordability where resources are colocation facilities in Johannesburg, • Commitment to open peering and
limited, and resilience where systems Cape Town, Nairobi, and Lagos house route diversity to avoid monopolies.
more than 50 carriers and major
IXPs on-premises, enabling them to The cables may dominate the
choose connectivity that suits them, headlines, but the future will be
avoid single-exit chokepoints, and decided in the neutral data centres
keep costs down. and exchanges where latency is either
turned into a liability or Africa’s greatest
hidden advantage. Finding this balance
is the first step in winning the race for
By Adil El Youssefi, Chief Executive Officer, Africa Data Centres the continent’s digital future.

6 | EngineerIT November/December 2025