African infrastructure private equity manager African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) and N+ONE Datacenters, an African data centre owner and operator, are joining forces to develop a new pan-African data centre and cloud services platform with a short-term target capacity of 40 MW.
N+ONE says it will contribute its existing portfolio of digital infrastructure assets and extensive products in Morocco, while AIIM will be contributing an initial US$90 million of growth equity through its latest pan-African infrastructure fund, African Infrastructure Investment Fund 4 (aka AIIF4).
The partners say the platform will focus on the development of hyperscale and wholesale carrier-neutral facilities to provide solutions to enterprise, government and hyperscale customers across the continent.
The partnership with AIIM paves the way for N+ONE to further expand its existing campuses in Morocco and Senegal while developing new hyperscale locations in response to customer demand.
AIIM says its extensive infrastructure investment track record in Africa, with multiple digital infrastructure investments across the telecommunications towers, data centre and fibre sub-sectors, coupled with an active asset management strategy to support high-performing management teams alongside its ability to provide substantial growth capital, were key factors in forming the alliance.
The growth equity contribution will support the roll-out of the platform and construction of greenfield data centre infrastructure across West Africa. This investment will add to AIIM’s current portfolio of digital infrastructure assets and, it adds, accelerate digitisation on the continent.
This is the sixth commitment made out of AIIM’s AIIF4 fund, which targets growth infrastructure opportunities within the digital infrastructure, energy transition and mobility and logistics space.