Jazz, the Pakistani offshoot of the Veon telecoms group, has started a 300-rack data centre in the country’s capital, Islamabad.
The US$8 million Jazz Digital Park, with 3MW of power, will accelerate Pakistan’s digital transformation, said Veon, by improving provision of IT services. And it will host Jazz’s new cloud platform.
Group CEO Kaan Terzioğlu (pictured) said: “Through our leadership position in Pakistan and our global expertise, we are focused on helping create a flourishing digital ecosystem in Pakistan.”
Veon said that the Jazz Digital Park is the country’s largest tier-III certified data centre in terms of white space and power capacity, according to data from the Telecommunications Industry Association.
The company said that Jazz will use this digital park to offer secure IT infrastructure and hardware hosting facilities to businesses as well as local start-ups.
The data centre will also be hosting the new cloud platform that is soon to be launched by Jazz. “The onshore cloud will be a significant step in ensuring that data created in Pakistan is hosted within the country,” said the company.
Terzioğlu said: “Jazz Digital Park will serve as a key enabler of our digital operator strategy and is in line with our mission to simplify digital infrastructure challenges for local and regional enterprises.”
Jazz CEO Aamir Ibrahim said: “Since the pandemic and the subsequent acceleration to digital platforms, businesses across various sectors are re-assessing their cloud adoption strategies and cloud readiness. The Jazz Digital Park represents a historic milestone for the country’s ICT industry as it is expected to simplify digital infrastructure challenges local businesses face.”
Jazz said it also plans to facilitate the Pakistani start-up ecosystem by offering cloud computing credits under its premium start-up accelerator programme at the country’s National Incubation Center.
Ibrahim said: “This facility is at the heart of our business strategy and validates our commitment to our customers as they continue their digital transformation journey.”