News
ADC Ranks Africa Data Centres, As Nigeria Shows Growth Potentials
Africa Data Centres, the pan-African network of vendor-and carrier-neutral datacentres, has ranked Kenya in second place just behind South Africa in terms of the growth and development of its datacentre market.
Stephane Duproz, CEO at Africa Data Centres, said the East African country is listed among the top five datacentre markets in Africa (alongside Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa), but has recently experienced a steady and “healthy” adoption of relevant technology by enterprises.
The company manages, plans and sells power capacity expressed in kilowatts, used and paid for by customers.
Typically, a rack provides three kilowatts and in Africa, the general request is for several racks to provide between ten and fifty kilowatts of power.
Duproz said South Africa has long been the only country in Africa in which there are requests (mostly from large enterprises like banks) for megawatt power supply – until now.
Africa Data Centres’ regional hub in Nairobi is now receiving similar requests, a clear indication the market is maturing.
The company plans to intensify its focus on market growth and meeting local demand.
Duproz said: “We are currently seeing a significant transformation in the profile in the requests we are getting in Kenya. At ADC Kenya we are still seeing a very healthy take-up by enterprise, they understand that is more secure, more cost effective to have their IT equipment in a proprietary centre than in their own facility, this includes banks… it shows that Kenya is becoming country number two in the datacentre market in Africa.”
He added, “We have definitely decided that it (Nairobi) is the most connected in terms of the number of telcos, something like thirty, and we have the internet exchange point there, so it is the most connected and consequently the most attractive facility – if you have content to distribute. Because the more networks are available in the datacentre, the more routes you have to distribute your content … and obviously cloud providers are essentially content providers.”
Duproz believes Nigeria is likely to reach that stage in the foreseeable future. “If you take the total use capacity of the current Nigerian datacentres, you hardly get to potentially one or two megawatts in total… so we’re not there yet.”
EFCC
The African Development Bank Group last week approved an investment of €6.5 million in the Saviu II fund in order to support technology start-ups through their seed phase and first institutional fundraising, mainly in French-speaking Central and West Africa.
The Bank will invest €4.5 million as equity and €2 million as a first-loss hedging tranche on behalf of the European Commission, under the Boost Africa Programme.
This participation of the Bank Group will enable the Saviu II fund to give priority to companies with a strong technological or digital component.
Saviu II, the second investment vehicle of Saviu Partners, plans to invest between €500,000 and €3 million in about 20 technology or technology-oriented business-to-business start-ups in the seed phase or carrying out first institutional fundraising.
The Saviu II venture capital fund aims to make at least 60% of its commitments in the French-speaking countries of West and Central Africa: Côte d ‘Ivoire, Cameroon, Benin, Senegal, Togo, Burkina Faso and Mali.
The fund can also co-invest in promising technology companies in East Africa that have a strong team and business model, and whose strategy includes entering the market in French-speaking West African countries and establishing a strong presence there.
In addition, the fund will devote a dedicated envelope to pre-seed investments, focusing on minority equity investments, usually in co-investment with studios, incubators or other ecosystem partners.
Nigerian Government has signed a $1.3 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) via the Solid Minerals Development Fund (SMDF) to fund an alumina refinery, national geoscience mapping, and a strategic investment vehicle for mining growth.
Special Assistant to the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Segun Tomori, said the refinery will process one million tonnes of bauxite yearly using a modern Bayer process, powered by an on-site gas-fired cogeneration plant.
Minister Dele Alake called it a transformative milestone boosting GDP, aligning with reforms that improve investment climate, regulations, and licensing to attract private capital. He directed agencies to fast-track permits.
The 20-year project at 95% utilization eyes 19 million tonnes total output, $1.2 billion annual GDP addition, $25 billion economic impact, and $8 billion forex earnings, per feasibility studies.
SMDF Executive Secretary Fatima Shinkafi termed it the agency’s biggest funding deal, supporting value-addition policy.
The partnership extends to geoscience mapping for mineral data, de-risking exploration, and a joint vehicle for mining assets.
Permanent Secretary Engr. Farouk Yabo praised the reforms. Shinkafi signed for government; AFC’s Franklin Edochie for the corporation, witnessed by AFC CEO Samaila Zubairu.
Tomori positioned it as Nigeria’s largest private mining investment and FDI magnet.
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