Open Access Data Centres (OADC) has launched a new data center in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
The company this week announced that the first phase of OADC Texaf Digital - Kinshasa, a joint venture between OADC and TEXAF, is now live.
First announced in early 2023, the 2MW, 1,500 sqm (16,145 sq ft) facility was being developed in partnership with local real estate firm TEXAF and located in the latter’s Silkin Village hub. With capacity for 550 racks, the site was originally due to go live last year.
Mohammed Bouhelal, managing director of OADC Texaf DRC, said: “OADC Texaf Digital - Kinshasa is central to boosting many sectors of the DRC’s economy, creating rich and vibrant digital ecosystems, and providing content distribution networks and cloud content providers with access to a quality peering location in the country.”
He added: “We already have over 12 leading national and international carriers connected, with the banking sector being the leading adopter of OADC Texaf Digital - Kinshasa solutions. The open-access, carrier-neutral facility is set to transform the country’s digital infrastructure by creating a comprehensive, vibrant interconnection and peering ecosystem involving multiple carriers, ISPs, content providers, and Internet Exchanges.”
The company said the facility is the DRC’s first live open-access, carrier-neutral, and Uptime Institute Tier III certified data center, with ISO27001 post live certification on track for Q3 2024. Raxio also has a Tier III-certified data center in Kinshasa.
The site is fed by utility power sourced from hydro generation.
In November 2021, WIOCC announced it had raised $200 million to launch a new pan-African data center network known as Open Access Data Centres (OADC). OADC is planning several core data centers in countries across the continent and is rolling out hundreds of small Edge locations in South Africa.
With facilities live in Nigeria and South Africa, the company has previously said it plans data centers in up to 20 countries across Africa, including Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Somalia.
Formed in 2008, African wholesale network firm WIOCC is part of the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy), Europe India Gateway (EIG), West Africa Cable System (WACS), Telecom Egypt North (TE North), South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 5 (SEA-ME-WE 5), and the Facebook-led 2Africa cable systems.
Source: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/oadc-launches-data-center-in-dr-congo/