Tesh Durvasula, CEO at Africa Data Centres.

Africa Data Centres, part of the Cassava Technologies Group, said it has commenced with the construction of a 30MW datacentre facility in Accra, Ghana.

According to a statement released to the media, the new facility will lay the groundwork for the company’s hyper-scale partners to expand digital services and solutions to more countries in West Africa “and will make Africa Data Centres the largest provider in West Africa, with facilities in Nigeria, Togo and now Ghana.”

Tesh Durvasula, CEO at Africa Data Centres, the Accra operation is a significant milestone for the company and highlights the massive growth opportunity the company sees for its business in the region and the continent. “We are witnessing an unprecedented demand for digital services, apps, broadband, cloud technologies, and more, all of which are seeing data demand soar to unimagined levels.”

“This new facility will be a giant leap forward in our ambitious long-term plans to close the digital divide in Africa by bringing digital services to more businesses and people. We chose Accra as our next location since there is an existing high demand from hyper-scalers, cloud operators and multi-national enterprises to digitally transform West Africa,” he continued.

Africa Data Centres affirms that in addition to bringing digital services, the datacentre will create numerous job opportunities through the digitisation of the economy and hiring local contractors and workers for the builds, from entry to high-tech level.

According to Durvasula, “Many exciting innovations have their home in Africa, and numerous start-ups are raising billions to debut disruptive models across a wide range of sectors. Moreover, with Ghana being the second-largest economy in West Africa, it also is an attractive investment destination for international tech giants that want to expand their footprint in the region”.

Africa Data Centres said seamless connectivity is key to helping Ghanaian businesses and citizens reap the rewards of the digital disruptions happening across West Africa.

“However, the lack of necessary infrastructure has resulted in slower growth than the rest of the world,” the company added.

It continued: “Opening a datacentre aligns with our expansion plans and is timeous as the government in Ghana has been introducing innovative and forward-thinking digital projects over the last few years. Although there has been significant growth in the past fear years, many Ghanaian citizens remain without digital services.”

Said Durvasula, “As the largest network of interconnected, carrier- and cloud-neutral datacentre facilities on the continent, we are continuously working to provide the infrastructure to reduce this digital divide. Being a business of Cassava Technologies, we intend to play a significant role in bringing to Ghana the necessary digital and infrastructure services required to support the mass adoption of digital services in the country and the wider continent.

“The Africa Data Centres team aims to build many interconnected, cloud- and carrier-neutral data centres across the length and breadth of the continent in an unrivalled US$500-million investment in Africa’s digital transformation.”