Tesh Durvasula was recently appointed chief executive officer of Africa Data Centre. In a chat with chike onwuegbuchi, he explained the potentials of ADC’s new facility located in Lagos.

What is the potential of the business in Lagos where there are more than 5 data centres?

Firstly, I’d like to say that there’s tremendous growth in the need for digital tools and services across the world. Africa is no different, and its citizens, like all others around the world, want to enjoy the same benefits that participating in a digital economy offer.

However, to provide these services you need infrastructure such as fibre optics and data centres, and cassava technologies centres around bringing these services and more to Africa. Africa’s population is a young one, and they estimate that over the next 10 years, the largest number of the population will be in the 18 to 35 range.

While other nations and continents such as Europe and North America, have an ageing population. Our population is only getting younger, and they want to do things differently. They all have smartphones, which is like having a supercomputer in their pocket, and they are excited and eager to participate in this new economy.

There’s no doubt that Nigeria is leading this charge, and I am sure that we are underestimating the capacity we need. Africa is going to be a place where digital infrastructure will continue to expand, across Africa.

Reports estimate that we need 1000MW and 700 facilities to meet Africa’s growing demands and bring the rest of the continent to a level place in terms of capacity and density, but if history has taught us anything in this industry, and I’ve been in this industry for 25 plus years, is that our ability to underestimate the demand side of this equation has been unbelievable. I believe we are underestimating Africa’s demand, much like we underestimated in in Europe and Asia. We are not worried about business in Lagos at all.

 Challenge of power and Data centre business that requires 24/7 power supply.

Electrical supply is a global problem at the moment. We’re leading up to a year in North America, you’re waiting up to two years in parts of Europe, and those trying to get power in the north of London right now, could be waiting till 2025.

Nigeria is not unique in this situation. The electrical supply and the demands on our electrical grids as a planet, have continued to increase, and people are working hard to meet this demand as more investment comes into Africa, and into local cities, municipalities and jurisdictions for for operating companies.

You’re going to see that, and we have a new renewable energy platform platform called Distributed Power Technologies or DPT, which is part of the Cassava Group, and Africa Data Centres taking advantage of our relationship with DPT to help us meet that need. DPT developing a 10MWp solar PV power plant for our new Lagos data centre.

We aim to work closely with them, to ensure that our clients are guaranteed the most reliable data centre services.

In fact, we believe that advancements in storage technology will play a crucial role in emerging commercial and industrial markets, and this will lessen the intermittency of renewables, and at the same time, will provide redundancy during blackouts.

DPT is also working alongside Tesla to utilise its Megapack battery storage technology which will be deployed at off-site solar farms and will store the excess power that is generated during the day, greatly increasing the availability of dispatchable energy.

These will also be installed within our data centres, where storage is becoming a practical solution to carry sites when blackouts occur.

Target for locating your facility in Lagos

No, as with all our data centre investments in key areas on the continent, our new 10MW facility in Lagos will serve a hub for the entire West-Africa region.

What makes your facility different from others

At Africa Data Centres, we pride ourselves on being is the largest network of 100% interconnected, carrier- and cloud-neutral data centre facilities on the continent.

What also sets us apart is our commitment to lowering our carbon footprint, and as a company that promotes sustainability, we cannot emphasise enough that there will be no question of sacrificing the environment to carry out our ambitious digitisation plans.

This is a trade-off Africa Data Centres is simply not even prepared to contemplate. Our strategy goes far beyond boosting out bottom line, for us, it is all about empowering and uplifting Africa’s citizens, protecting the environment, and uplifting the economy. We are not just here for the money, we are here to provide jobs, and help Africa achieve its digital ambitions.

Competing with global brands and organisations’ interest

Although hyperscale providers such as AWS, Azure and Google have global cloud services built upon an extensive network of self-built data centres, they do not have Africa-based facilities, creating latency and sovereignty issues and hampering the growth of their cloud offerings in the region.

Nigeria is one of the Africa Data Centres key markets on the continent, because Nigerians are eager for digitisation, as organisations of every type and size in Africa accelerate their digital transformation journeys in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of the recently launched Cassava Technologies group, Africa Data Centres plays a critical role when it comes to providing this very digital infrastructure that is needed to support the mass adoption of digital services for consumers and business in the region.

What 10mw Data Centre facility means

Our new 10MW Lagos facility was built by us in response to the soaring demand Africa Data Centres has seen from hyper-scalers, key cloud operators as well as multi-national enterprises that already employ our services and have shown a sharp interest in being a part of bringing digitisation at scale to the West Africa region.

Megawatts of MW are used to measure the output of a power plant, or the amount of electricity required by an entire city. One megawatt is equal to 1,000 kilowatts, or 1,000,000 watts. Power is the key element that brings a data centre facility to life and it is what keeps customers’ IT infrastructure up and running even in the event of a disruption.

Power is the most critical element of any data centre.  In the data centre sector, megawatts are reserved for wholesale colocation providers that require enough power for thousands of servers, customers and their and related IT hardware.

About Tesh the new Chief Executive Officer of Africa Data Centres

In my new role as Chief Executive Officer of Africa Data Centres, I will be charged with driving growth, innovation and strategy of Cassava Technologies’ data centres to meet Africa’s rapidly growing demand for data and digital infrastructure.

I am an experienced technology and real estate industry executive with a proven, 25-year track record of successful leadership and value generation in the digital infrastructure sector.

I hope to lead the Africa Data Centres team as we rapidly expand our footprint of hyper scale data centres throughout Africa with a plan to add an additional ten data centres in the top ten economic centres in Africa. Before joining Africa Data Centres, I served in a variety of executive roles at CyrusOne, culminating in his appointment as the Chief Executive Officer of the company.

And, before that, I served as president of Europe operations for CyrusOne, overseeing CyrusOne’s expansion into England, Ireland, France and Germany, helping grow CONE into one of the largest publicly traded REIT’s in the US.

I believe the potential to grow digital infrastructure is bigger in Africa than anywhere else across the globe and this will present a number of opportunities for economic transformation. I am extremely pleased to have joined Africa Data Centres and Cassava Technologies, particularly now as Africa has become one of the fastest-growing data usage regions in the world. I feel we are well poised to make an invaluable contribution to Africa’s rapidly developing digital ecosystem.