Vantage Data Centers has announced the completion of a hyperscale data centre which is located within its 80MW campus in Johannesburg, South Africa.
According to a statement seen by TechCabal, the 2-story facility, called JHB11, offers 16MW of critical IT capacity across 130,000 square feet (12,000 square meters). The project, which was launched in 2021, was delivered in 10 months, 10 days ahead of schedule, with zero lost-time incidents over 1.5 million working hours.
At a cost totalling $1 billion, Vantage’s 30-acre (12 hectares) campus, which house the data centre, will include 80MW of IT capacity and more than 650,000 square feet (60,000 square meters) across 3 data centres once fully developed.
Located in Waterfall City, the campus complements the area’s data centre ecosystem and leverages its fibre connectivity to the rest of Africa. The campus also offers renewable energy options, limits carbon emissions, and maintains energy-efficient operations with an industry-leading power usage effectiveness (PUE).
Speaking on the launch of the data centre, Justin Jenkins, chief operating officer EMEA at Vantage Data Centres, mentioned that the project’s rapid completion allows the company to more quickly meet the demand for hyperscale data centres in the region.
“At Vantage, we pride ourselves on not only our speed to market but also our commitment to become part of the local community and cement our reputation as a reliable data centre partner in the region. This project created hundreds of jobs that will continue into the next phase of construction, and we thank our teams for their dedication and commitment to deliver such a high-quality product for our customers,” he concluded.
With the continent’s digital ecosystem rapidly expanding and large swaths of data being produced as a result, hyperscale data centres are becoming increasingly common in Africa. Last year, Africa Data Centres, a subsidiary of Liquid Intelligent Technologies, announced a $500 million investment in 10 interconnected data centres across 10 countries in 2 years.
In April this year, Nigerian company Kasi Cloud Limited also announced the commencement of construction of a $250 million hyperscale data centre in Lagos, Nigeria.
According to a study by Xalam Analytics, after doubling in the four years prior to 2020, Africa’s multi-tenant data centre co-location supply is expected to grow by a further 25% by 2023. Despite the growth, the continent currently accounts for less than 1% of the world’s co-location data centre supply, signalling a massive room for even more growth.
