The facilities being developed by WIOCC Group's new data center company Open Access Data Centres (OADC) will host cable landing stations for the 2Africa and Equiano subsea cables. This is after WIOCC completed a $200 million debt and equity capital raise.
OADC will launch a network of pan-African data centers optimized to serve the needs of the cloud provider and wholesale community. In line with this, strategic investments in the new Equiano and 2Africa international subsea systems will augment and complement WIOCC’s existing core network infrastructure, cost-effectively adding multi-Terabits (Tbps) of capacity and significantly increasing its options for delivering the high-availability solutions demanded in markets across Africa.
OADC’s chief commercial officer, Kevin McLoughlin, said, “We are really excited to be working in partnership with the vibrant wholesale community, including cloud and content providers, telcos and internet service providers (ISPs), helping them to expand their businesses into new territories and markets across Africa.”
First-phase locations will house key submarine cable landings in Lagos, Durban, and Mogadishu, supporting the drive to land international submarine capacity directly into carrier-neutral data centers. Each will provide clients with bespoke colocation facilities and ultra-reliable, seamless connectivity directly into new international subsea systems, eliminating the costs and risks traditionally associated with terrestrial backhauling.
Construction and fit-out are underway in Lagos and Durban, with both to be launched early in 2022, whilst the Mogadishu data center will be ready before the end of 2022. OADC Lagos will become the landing point for Google's Equiano submarine cable. Meanwhile, OADC is also expected to house the cable landing for the Durban branch of the 2Africa submarine cable.
Further phases of deployment will deliver more than 20 new data centers in strategic locations throughout the continent, focusing on major connectivity hubs in each country.
Chris Wood, CEO of WIOCC, said, “The creation of a new Group company – Open Access Data Centres – offering a transformational data center proposition to the market will underpin and accelerate the evolution of cloud ecosystems in Africa, delivering the low-latency, high-performance capabilities increasingly demanded in Africa’s markets.”
