Telecom
Digital Economy Offers Potentials for Data Centres – Durvasula
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.
Airtel Money Africa, Airtel Africa’s mobile money arm, announced an extended partnership with Africa’s largest mobile money payment service provider (PSP) pawaPay to enable seamless cross-border payments for licensed International Money Transfer Operators (IMTOs) across seven key Airtel Africa markets.
This collaboration officially launches pawaPay’s service for inbound remittances into Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, and Tanzania. The partnership allows IMTOs to efficiently deliver funds globally directly to recipients’ more than 161 million Airtel Money customers wallets, leveraging pawaPay’s renowned reliability, scalability, and 99.9% platform uptime.
Building on five years of trusted collaboration in domestic mobile money, this expansion strengthens and simplifies Airtel Money Africa’s backend processes, using pawaPay’s robust payment service provider infrastructure, which processes over four million transactions daily.
Airtel Money Africa CEO, Ian Ferrao, said: “We’re pleased to expand our partnership with pawaPay to advance international remittances across Africa. Their proven reliability and commitment to African consumers make them an ideal partner. This integration empowers International Money Transfer Operators to securely connect with Airtel Money’s growing footprint, delivering real-time payments that support financial inclusion and economic growth.”
pawaPay CEO, Nikolai Barnwell, said: “Our mission is to simplify payments for businesses in Africa, and remittances are pivotal. Deepening our relationship with Airtel Money allows International Money Transfer Operators to leverage our world-class infrastructure for seamless cross-border payments.”
Remittances remain critical for millions of Africans, enabling family support, entrepreneurship, and financial inclusion. This partnership ensures secure, instant mobile wallet transactions, key to advancing Africa’s digital economy. pawaPay will extend this capability to additional Airtel Money Africa markets in coming months.
Rubrik, the cybersecurity company, and Sophos, a global leader of innovative security solutions for defeating cyberattacks, have announced a strategic partnership to provide Sophos M365 Backup and Recovery Powered by Rubrik.
This marks the first Managed Detection and Response (MDR)-optimized Microsoft 365 backup and recovery solution fully integrated into Sophos Central, Sophos’ security operations platform.
Designed to support IT and cybersecurity teams, the new offering will provide a unified global platform to enhance cyber resilience against ransomware, account compromise, insider threats, and data loss in SharePoint, Exchange, OneDrive, and Teams.
“We are reshaping what it means to stay operational in a world shaped by constant digital disruption,” said Joe Levy, CEO, Sophos. “This is the future of cyber resilience: an intelligent, adaptive partnership that ensures organizations remain secure, responsive, and uninterrupted. By combining Sophos’ prevention-first approach with Rubrik’s unwavering recovery capabilities, we empower businesses to withstand attacks and maintain continuity, even under pressure.”
Sophos will offer a powerful new add-on solution for its more than 75,000 MDR and XDR customers, enabling fast, secure recovery of critical Microsoft 365 data in the event of accidental deletion or malicious compromise.
This solution integrates Rubrik’s industry-leading SaaS-based protection directly into the trusted Sophos Central platform, giving organizations the flexibility to enhance their existing security operations with robust data recovery capabilities.
The Sophos Central platform integrates over 350 different telemetry sources across endpoint, cloud, network, identity, email and business applications. The platform leverages deep learning, custom LLMs, and frontier models to detect and respond to threats across the entire attack surface, enhancing defense effectiveness.
“The reality of today’s threat landscape demands a holistic approach to cyber resilience,” said Bipul Sinha, CEO, Chairman, and Co-founder of Rubrik. “With AI-enabled attacks and sophisticated breaches on the rise, organizations need more than just prevention; they need the ability to recover rapidly and reliably. Our partnership with Sophos delivers this critical capability directly within a platform security teams already use and trust, raising the bar for Microsoft 365 resilience.”
The Evolving Threat Landscape
According to The State of Ransomware report by Sophos, nearly half of organizations impacted by ransomware chose to pay the ransom to recover their data. Despite this, only 54% of affected companies relied on backups for data restoration, highlighting a continued gap in effective cyber resilience practices.
Recent research highlights the urgent need for robust Microsoft 365 data protection: 60% of Microsoft 365 tenants have experienced account takeovers, a frequent launchpad for lateral movement within an organization, and 81% have encountered email compromise.
When global admin credentials are compromised, attackers can manipulate retention settings and permanently delete critical business data.
Existing tools were not designed for comprehensive, large-scale recovery, which requires speed, granularity, and reliability for rapid restoration.
Sophos MDR and XDR customers will benefit from:
- Secure, immutable backups: Rubrik will isolate Microsoft 365 backups with air-gapped storage, WORM locks, and customer-held encryption keys. Multifactor authentication and data lock prevent tampering, even with compromised credentials.
- Fast, flexible recovery: Customers will be able to restore Microsoft 365 emails, OneDrives, SharePoint sites, Teams channels, and more to original or alternate users, including inactive accounts.
- Automated protection: Rubrik will automatically discover Microsoft 365 users, sites, and mailboxes, applies Entra ID-based policies, and supports delegated admin – all integrated with Sophos Central to reduce manual effort.
- Unified experience: Microsoft 365 protection and security operations will be managed via Sophos Central with no extra tools.
Rubrik and Sophos’ shared commitment to helping organizations operate with confidence in the face of risk, will provide Sophos customers and partners with a powerful solution to recover with speed and precision when threats inevitably break through.
This offering will be available through Sophos’ channel partner network in the coming months.
MTN Nigeria is deepening its role as an industry enabler with the launch of its Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform and the signing of its first Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) agreement, Chief Financial Officer Modupe Kadri revealed on Monday.
Speaking in an exclusive Channels TV interview, Kadri confirmed that MTN has opened its network to T2 (formerly 9Mobile) under the NaaS framework approved by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). This allows T2 subscribers to roam seamlessly on MTN’s infrastructure while retaining their own customer relationships and branding.
“Network-as-a-Service is a platform where MNOs can roam within the NCC framework on MTN’s network,” Kadri explained. “It makes the industry more efficient in the utilisation of scarce resources.”
Kadri also announced MTN’s first MVNO partnership, with the virtual operator set to go live soon. MVNOs lease network capacity from established mobile operators, enabling them to offer services without investing in costly infrastructure.
These initiatives align with NCC’s push for infrastructure sharing to boost sector efficiency and coverage. By providing network access to smaller players, MTN is positioning itself as a critical enabler of market expansion.
The Nigerian telecom industry, valued at $10.8 billion, now reaches 169 million active phone lines and over 142 million internet subscribers. While competition remains intense, the trend toward infrastructure sharing is expected to lower barriers to entry for new service providers, increase service quality, and expand access in underserved areas.
“As MTN, we are here to help the industry survive,” Kadri said. “It makes it much easier when you see other operators willing to come on and provide quality services to Nigerians, which we all deserve.”
Industry analysts view the move as a strategic diversification for MTN. With voice revenues plateauing and data driving growth, shared network models offer new revenue streams and a hedge against market saturation.
MTN’s investments in NaaS and MVNO partnerships are part of its broader transformation strategy, which also includes cost optimisation, forex risk reduction, and targeted capital expenditure to strengthen network quality.
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Airtel Money Africa Partners pawaPay for Seamless International Remittances Across Africa
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Rubrik Joins Forces with Sophos to Reinvent M365 Recovery
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