The Raxio Group, a pan-African data centre developer and operator, has claimed a first. It will establish and invest in Raxio Kinshasa, the first in a series of state-of-the-art, privately owned, carrier-neutral data centres in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The new data centre, which is to be commissioned in the second quarter of 2022, will, says Raxio, offer its customers an optimised environment for their IT equipment in a state-of-the-art facility.
Raxio says the centre will be fully equipped with industry-best technology, security, caging, AC/DC power compatibility and redundancy in a 99.982 percent uptime environment.
Customers will be able to cross-connect with local and international carriers and other customers in specially designed meet-me rooms. By co-locating in Raxio’s facility, customers will benefit from what is described as a ‘shared infrastructure’ model, and reduce their operational and capital costs, while improving application performance and flexibility.
The announcement of the new data centre is well timed. The DRC government recently unveiled what it calls a National Digital Plan – Horizon 2025, highlighting the need for the establishment and modernisation of infrastructure, such as secure data centres, broadband infrastructure, and access to ICT-related incentives. In the coming years, new subsea cables will be landing along the coast, and the country’s inland terrestrial fibre networks are to be expanded.
Raxio expects to build additional facilities in the DRC in the future, including a second one in Kinshasa and one in Lubumbashi in the Katanga region.
Raxio Kinshasa is the third data centre of the Raxio Group portfolio. We reported last year on the establishment of a Raxio data centre in Uganda and plans for another in Ethiopia, where construction started earlier this year in Addis Ababa.
The company says it expects to complete up to 10-12 data centre investments across Africa to meet the increased demand for high-quality local storage and data hosting in the region.
