Teraco breaks ground on South African data centre

Teraco Data Environments has commenced the build of a new 38-megawatt hyperscale data center east of Johannesburg in South Africa.

The JB4 data center, located in Ekurhuleni, will take just over a year to build as a standalone data center, with completion slated for Q1 2022.

At 5000 square metres, JB4 will be Africa's largest data center once complete, according to Teraco Data Environments.

The centre will also service increased demand for cloud services across Africa, and also takes critical power load capacity at Teraco facilities to over 110MW, which includes the Isando Campus JB1/JB3 (39MW), Bredell JB2 (13MW), Rondebosch Cape Town CT1 (3MW), Brackenfell Cape Town CT2 (18MW) and Durban (1MW).

The JB4 facility will also have multiple fibre paths to the Teraco Isando Campus connectivity hub (JB1 and JB3), which is 20 kilometres away.

Teraco Data Environments CEO Jan Hnizdo says that South Africa is strategically located at the tip of the African continent.

"As a result, is positioned as a technology and data center hub for sub-Saharan Africa. This is further underpinned by growing undersea and terrestrial fibre connectivity to the rest of Africa.

"The continued increase of cloud adoption in Africa is also being enabled by investments in critical infrastructure, including hyperscale data center facilities such as JB4. This will enable global cloud clients to service not only the South African market but reach the rest of the sub-Saharan African region as well," continues Hnizdo.

JB4 will be built in two phases. The first phase includes eight 1000 square metre halls that will deliver 19 megawatts of power. The second phase will bring it up to its 38 megawatt power load across 16 1000 square-metre halls.

Teraco Data Environments' Platform Teraco ecosystem comprises more than 600 global and local customers, and more than 18500 cross-connects.

JB4 is being constructed to meet global hyperscale requirements as well as international compliance standards and will augment the existing portfolio of ISO9001, ISO27001, PCI-DSS and ISAE3402 certified data center facilities.

Teraco Data Environments says that JB4 is the company's seventh data center development.

Hnizdo says that this expansion is aimed at further supporting sub-Saharan enterprises with advancing their digital transformation strategies, as well as enabling global cloud providers to expand their footprints, and ultimately spurring innovation.

Teraco Data Environments' data centers provide access to a wide choice of network service providers, peering at NAPAfrica, regional IXPs, content delivery networks and cloud provider on-ramps.