Rack Centre, a leading carrier neutral data centre operator in West Africa, has announced an expansion programme that will increase capacity to a total net white space of 6,000 square metres and allow for 13MW of IT power capacity in its Lagos campus. This will be in addition to the current expansion already underway to double existing capacity to 1.5MW and 1,200 square metres of white space in early 2021. The expansion will bring unprecedented carrier neutral scale to West Africa and is in response to increasing demand for data centre space from cloud uptake, telecommunication investment and outsourcing of IT facilities by enterprises in the region.
In March 2020, Actis, a London private equity firm, announced an investment in Rack Centre, taking a controlling stake in the business alongside Jagal. The funding for this expansion will come from a US$250 million pan-African data centre platform established by Actis and Convergence Partners, a leading ICT infrastructure investor in Africa. In addition to Rack Centre, the platform is also actively developing additional buy and build opportunities across Africa, to establish a network of carrier neutral data centres aimed at catering to carrier, cloud and hyperscale customers.
Tim Parsonson, Co-Founder of Teraco Data Environments, the largest carrier neutral operator in Africa, joins the Board as Chairperson. The platform has also engaged Frank Hassett, a veteran of the global data centre industry and previous Vice President of Infrastructure at Equinix, who brings over 1,300MW of build and operate experience, to assist with hyperscale expansion.
