African Data Centre Association has released latest report detailing continent's strong datacentre value proposition.

With more datacentre facilities opening across Africa, colocation and local hosting is expected to double by the end of 2020, according to the latest market report released by the African Data Centre Association (ADCA), in conjunction with Xalam Analytics.

According to the State of the African Data Centre Market 2020 report, at least 20 more dedicated facilities are expected to be established by 2021.

This is expected to raise the profile of Africa as an attractive proposition for investment among global cloud companies.

An excerpt from the report reads: “The expansion of global content, network and cloud providers into Africa has been another catalyst of demand for datacentres. Global providers are leveraging local facilities to bring their content and services closer to the African customer.”

The report, estimated that “the total number of edge locations by international network and content providers in Africa is close to 300 and growing by about 10% a year. By the end of 2020, at least three global hyperscale cloud providers will be offering their services from datacentre facilities located in the African continent.”

Amazon Web Service (AWS) recently launched its first datacentres in Cape Town, South Africa as the demand for local hosting surged. In 2019, Microsoft Azure launched its first African cloud datacentre in South Africa.

Content providers like Facebook and Netflix have found it easier to extend services in the region thanks to the prudent infrastructure.

Content delivery networks like Cloudflare and Akamai are leveraging African datacentres to make it easier for African users to access global content.

Byron Horn-Botha, Lead Channel and Partnership, Arcserve Southern Africa, said: “The launch of AWS in the local market opens up additional opportunities for clients and service providers. It allows data to remain in country while in a secure environment. It also means the uptake and adoption to use cloud as a platform will become increasingly the norm if not a consideration.”

“Local datacentres can use this as an opportunity to replicate data back into their environments or to replicate data to another cloud service provider,” he added.