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Investors look to capitalise on Ghana’s datacentre market growth

By , Sub Saharan Africa Business, Tech, News and Development Journalist
Ghana , 13 Jul 2021

After investing in Ghana’s Onix Accra 1 datacentre, Africa focused data storage and last mile internet company Africa Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) is to install an internet exchange point (IXP) at the facility in a bid to capitalise on the country’s low colocation penetration capacity.

The Onix Accra 1 is a major carrier-neutral Tier IV facility handling data storage for ISPs, telecommunication companies, government entities, cloud service providers and content distribution networks, among other users.

AIIM believes an IXP will boost connectivity and help reduce latency (the amount of time it takes for a company to access its data).

“Plans are in place to install an Internet Exchange Point (IXP) in the facility imminently, ensuring a comprehensive and robust connectivity ecosystem for Onix’s customer base,” said Ed Stumpf, Director for Investment at AIIM.

Datacentres in Africa continue to attract international investment and AIIM is competing alongside companies like Africa Data Centres, Raxio and MainOne, which recently launched the MDXi Datacentre in Accra.

According to AIIM there is a large amount of data storage off-shore from Africa and this makes the market more attractive.

“There is a real need to develop the necessary infrastructure. Last year we witnessed positive progress, with co-location datacentre capacity increasing 50% on the continent. Despite this, we still need to build capacity with internet penetration and demand for data per user increasing,” Stumpf told ITWeb Africa.

Stumpf added that Ghana is more confident of attracting further investment into its datacentre market because the country’s colocation penetration remains low compared to regional peers, with benchmarks for in-country colocation racks per enterprise, racks per urban enterprise and racks per unit of IP data volume all signalling significant latent growth potential.

He said: “Datacentres consume (a lot) of energy and (the) reliability of supply can be a key challenge in some markets, but can increasingly be addressed through renewable energies and distributed power solutions which is another key investment theme for AIIM.”

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