Airtel Africa unveils its data centre
By Kingsley Odii
Airtel has recently launched a new data centre business in Africa known as Nxtra by Airtel, which is geared towards digital transition on the continent.
Nxtra envisions building one of the largest networks of data centres in Africa with high-capacity data centres in major cities located in strategic points across Airtel Africa’s footprint, complementing its existing edge sites.
Nxtra is also designed to meet the growing need of African business and its data centre infrastructure will be designed to host the next generation of computing, while providing multi-MW capacity in a phased manner.
According to Airtel, these facilities will meet stringent global security requirements and meet ‘five nines’1 availability. Coupled with Airtel Africa’s extensive fibre footprint, Nxtra offers secure and scalable integrated solutions to global hyper-scalers, large African enterprises, startups, SMEs and governments.
Commenting on the new development, Segun Ogunsanya, Airtel Africa’s Group CEO, said, “A rapid increase in data centre capacity is needed to support the growth potential of Africa’s digital economy. We’re proud to drive the future of Africa’s digital infrastructure, unlocking opportunities for businesses to grow and fuelling economic prosperity.”
“Airtel Africa’s team has consistently shown our ability to deliver on infrastructure projects across Africa, and we are confident that our next generation data centres will support our ambition to become the partner of choice for global customers and Africa’s newest tech unicorns alike,” Segun added.
Through locally available data centre capacity, speed to access digital services will improve and the cost of managing data will be reduced, thus helping power increased innovation, while supporting a new generation of African tech talent.
Furthermore, Nxtra is enabling customers to meet data sovereignty requirements while at the same time enabling more local cloud services to be offered in the countries where Airtel Africa operates.
The first major Nxtra facility in Lagos, Nigeria, will deliver 34 MW of total power. It is designed to host high density racks and integrate the latest best practice construction to achieve 1.3 power usage effectiveness (PUE). It is expected to go live in mid-2025.
To deliver on Nxtra’s vision, Airtel Africa has appointed Yashnath Issur, the former head of Global Data Centre Portfolio Management at Amazon Web Services, as CEO of Nxtra by Airtel. Yashnath has 16 years of experience in the industry and has, over the past year, built a team of experts to execute on the strategy.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Comment
No comments found.