There is no denying that over the past decade, and ever since the year 2000, Afrika, in general, has progressed as far as digital technology is concerned. No more is the continent merely a consumer of technology but it has increasingly produced its own technology solutions and in some cases become the trendsetter.
Having said that, there is still quite a bit that needs to be done. Especially in the areas of internet connectivity and more importantly, in-country data center infrastructure.
Thus far, the COVID-19 pandemic has done more for digital growth and digital transformation in Afrika than over a decade of planning and investment. We've experienced increasing demand for internet services. However, more still needs to be done especially given that Afrika has a mostly young population that is hungry for faster and cheaper internet access, and so too the businesses.
The challenges
As we have witnessed in parts of the continent with the example of South Africa's #DataMustFall movement, there are issues around high data costs and high latency, and there’s the question about network connectivity in-country, and away from coastal areas. The one common denominator in the data center, or often the absence of data centers.
We need more Afrikan data centers.
Even though with each year that passes there are more data centers in Afrika, the pace of development needs to speed up. For example, let’s compare the amount of data center space available on the whole continent with London. In 2020, London’s data center space was 260,000m2; in comparison, Afrika’s total space was estimated at 861,207m2.
There’s also a challenge when it comes to the distribution of data centers across the continent. Over half, 61 to be precise, of Afrika’s 97 colocation data centers in 2022 so far are based either in South Africa, Egypt, Mauritius, or Nigeria. Kenya followed with nine, and Morocco with five.
There are two basic challenges when it comes to building tech infrastructure in many parts of Afrika, especially outside South Africa and Nigeria. The first is funding. We need more investment, much more. The African Development Bank estimates that the continent needs total infrastructure investment of $130 to $170 billion a year.
Today, the financing gap is between $68billion and $108 billion. We need to attract more private investment. The amount of money flowing into the data center space has edged up this year – one example is the breaking ground by Kasi Cloud in Lekki, Lagos to invest $250 million to build a data center.
The irony of the internet is that most Afrikan websites are hosted in Europe.
The need for more data centers in Afrika
The need for Afrika-based data centers becomes even more pronounced when you factor in how Afrikan governments have lately been waxing lyrical about the digital economy being key to economic development. In other cases, they talk about how emerging technologies as presented by the 4th Industrial Revolution are key to the continent’s future.
Yet without data centers, all this will end up just being talk. Alternatively, you could also ask, why don’t we just continue using data centers (or “the cloud”) that are located in North America, Asia, and Europe?
Where data centers are located is important, as is the case for terrestrial fiber networks, for the efficiency of how data moves across networks on the continent.
Data centers are also the basis for digital transformation. We’re going to need many more data centers everywhere across the continent to power economies, speed up connectivity and reduce the overall costs for server-hosted services.
Given all these emerging technology solutions that require instantaneous response and transmission, local data centers will significantly improve the speed at which such solutions can be accessed, reducing latency.
Afrika's data center market growth potential
The data center market in Afrika has great growth potential.
Afrika’s data center market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12% between 2000 and 2025, to hit three billion dollars. And much of that demand will come from cloud adoption – 70% of organizations in the continent will move their data and applications to the cloud by 2025. Afrika's data center market growth will be double-digit for the foreseeable future.
There has been progress, especially over the past 10 years but we definitely could do with more data centers across Afrika.
— By Tefo Mohapi
