Original Story Published by: Liam Taylor, www.africanbusinessmagazine.com
Photo Source: African Business
(Above) Data Center.
The internet can seem an airy, intangible thing. But at an industrial park near Kampala, the Ugandan capital, the digital revolution is arriving with graders and gravel. A new data centre, the first of its kind in Uganda, is being built here by a new company called Raxio.
“I look at this as a real estate business,” says Abdul Rahman Baguma Ahmed, who is in charge of technology and operations. Wearing hardhat and hi-vis he picks his way through the mud to a half-finished hall, which will eventually house 400 whirring racks.
Raxio is part of the Roha Group, a US-based investment firm which is bringing proven technologies to unmet African demand. The group’s first project was a container glass factory in Ethiopia, where it has also started a leasing company. Now it is turning its attention from bottles to bytes.
“A tremendous amount of investment has been put in across the continent into connectivity,” says Robert Mullins, executive director at Raxio, giving the example of 4G networks. Data centres are the “missing piece of digital infrastructure”.
The 1.5 MW centre is set to open in June, provides a secure “colocation” facility where different businesses can house their computing, networking, storage and IT infrastructure. An Ethiopian version is in the works; Raxio could be running 10 more across Africa within three years, says Mullins. It is not the only player in the data centre business. The private equity firm Actis is investing $250m in the sector, starting with a Nigerian rack company. In the last year Africa Data Centres, a subsidiary of Liquid Telecom, has tripled its South African capacity.
To read the full article, visit www.africanbusinessmagazine.com.
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