Durvasula: Africa Needs More Fibre Optics, Data Centre Infrastructure

Chief Executive Officer of Africa Data Centres, Tesh Durvasula, speaks to Emma Okonji about the growing demand for digital services across Africa, and the need for infrastructure such as fibre optics and data centres. Excerpts: 

Recently, Cassava Technologies announced your appointment as the new Chief Executive Officer of Africa Data Centres. How are you settling into your new role? 

The amount of support I have received has been great.  I have joined an extremely talented group of executives and staff that have oceans of experience in the African continent, and I am looking forward to learning from them as we continue to grow Cassava Technologies, and Africa Data Centres. 

You will lead the Africa Data Centres team as the organisation rapidly expands its footprint of hyperscale data centres throughout Africa with a plan to add additional ten data centres in the top ten economic centres in Africa. How do you intend to achieve this?

Africa Data Centres has a mantra of growth. We are looking for and talking about, growth in every way. Geographic expansion is just one part of this growth, we also want to grow in our enterprise space. Many of the top African 500 are already our customers and our aim is to be the organisation with whom Africans do business. We want to be the place that international and global companies think of, when they think of Africa. To achieve this growth, we must have world class standards and we intend to ensure we have these world class standards across all our functions, including sales, support, customer acquisition and finance. Those are the ways an organisation can become a world class provider, and this is how we intend to grow in Africa.

There is also an increasing demand for data centres across Africa as internet penetration continues to increase. What does the future of the data centre market look like in Africa, and what is driving this demand and growth?

Firstly, there is a growing demand for digital services across the globe and Africa is no different. Its citizens want to enjoy the same benefit of participating in a digital economy as their European counterparts do. To do this you need infrastructure such as fibre optics and data centres and Cassava Technologies is offering many of the services that Africa’s citizens are looking for. Africa’s population is a young one and over the next 10 years, the greatest percentage of the population will be in the 18 to 35 years old range. While other nations and continents such as Europe and North America are faced with a population that is ageing, our population is getting younger. And they don’t want to do things the same way their parents and grandparents did. They want to do them differently. They have a supercomputer in their pocket, they want to go online, to learn, to communicate, and to consume digital services, and they want to do it now.

For the time being, Africa accounts for less than 1% of the world’s co-location data centre supply, with South Africa accounting for the bulk of the continent’s capacity. Should we expect a substantial wave of data centre investments to materialise across the continent this year from players like you and why?

Considering the demographics that I talked about in my previous answer, we have a growing, younger, educated, African population. We have more women participating in the workforce, more women participating in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects, and participating in the new digital economy. Africa is going to be a place where digital infrastructure will continue to expand and not only in South Africa, Ibelieve that they will expand in East, West and North Africa too. Obviously, South Africa is a great economy, and a leader in terms of GDP. However, there are very capable people across the continent who are also looking to take advantage of this infrastructure and just as other African economies have caught-up and even exceeded that of South Africa in terms of GDP, they will also catch-up and possibly exceed with regards digital services, including colocation.

In February this year, a report from The African Data Centres Association (ADCA) and Xalam Analytic revealed that Africa needs 1000MW and 700 facilities to meet growing demand and bring the rest of the continent onto level terms with the capacity and density.  Is this enough for the continent at this time?

First, it sounds like Africa Data Centres picked a good place to be and we are very happy about that. If history has taught us anything in this industry, and I’ve been in this industry for 25 plus years, it is that our ability to underestimate the demand side of this equation has been unbelievable. If someone wants to put a number on it such as 1000MW and 700 facilities, that’s okay, but I suspect that we are probably underestimating this demand. We’ve underestimated this demand in North America and in Europe, as well as in Asia. My guess is that we probably underestimating it in Africa too. But it’s a good goal and we have a long way to go between here and there and Africa Data Centres is very excited about that opportunity. We are excited to expand and further our position as the leading pan-African data centre network. 

You recently unveiled new 10MW data centre in Lagos. Why is Nigeria an important market for Africa Data Centres?  

West Africa is extremely important and it is a very diversified area. You have French and English speaking regions. You have Nigeria as a key focus of the region with a wide range of different industries, from financial services and FinTech, to mining and oil. In addition, the region has an extremely large population, with a very large GDP. Again, the people in the region are extremely capable, and we can expect to see Nigeria, and Lagos in particular, continue to be a leading market in Africa.

Nigerian data centres were part of a continental network of data centres being rolled out in all the key cities of Africa. Can you advise what other key cities these include and if they have the same potential as Nigeria?

Africa Data Centres intends to grow ist pan-African operations. In terms of the number of facilities, we have announced the largest data centre expansion plan ever and we are well on our way to achieving the target of 10 facilities. You cannot be a Pan African operator if you don’t have a facility in North Africa, so it is safe to assume that there will be to be something in Cairo, and something in Casablanca, because Egypt and Morocco are prominent countries in Africa which are important to us. We are currently very, very big in Kenya, but there are plenty of other facilities in East Africa. So yes, I think there are a lot of cities that want to participate. Remember, if we go back to the macro trend, the secular trend is that we have a youthful population of educated people that does not want to do things the way they were done in the past. And in order to participate in that economy, you must have digital infrastructure – and these people are all over Africa.

Electricity supply in Nigeria is of a great challenge how does Africa Data Centres manage this challenge to ensure there is no downtime?

Electrical supply is a global situation right now. Power supply for data centres is challenging in North America, you are waiting up to two years in parts of Europe, and if you’re trying to get power for a facility north of London right now, you are waiting till 2025. Nigeria is not unique in this situation. The demands on our electrical grids as a planet, have continued to increase, and people are working hard to meet this demand as more investment comes into Africa, and into local cities, municipalities and jurisdictions for operating companies. 

However ADC and its customers are also aware of the environmental challenges that may be created through this increased demand on power grids created by the digital economy. We are accordingly working closely with our customers, local authorities and renewable energy suppliers to meet this increased power demand in as environmentally sustainable a manner as possible. As part of this initiative the Cassava group has created a renewable energy platform called Distributed Power Technologies or DPT. DPT and Africa Data Centres will partner to help us meet our power needs. As I said earlier, Cassava Technologies is here to deliver digital infrastructure to all of Africa, and part of that is going to be traditional industrial infrastructure such as power. DPT, as our power partner, will help us in areas like Nigeria and everywhere else we have a need and where we think they have a solution.