Carrier- and cloud-neutral colocation data centre solutions provider Teraco Data Environments today announced construction has commenced on a new hyperscale data centre, with 38-megawatts (MW) of critical power load, in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg.
In an interview with ITWeb yesterday, Jan Hnizdo, CEO of Teraco, said the company is investing $250 million (R4 billion) in the new facility,
“By the time we finish, we would have invested R4 billion over the two phases of construction,” Hnizdo said.
In a statement, the company says the facility, known as JB4, is scheduled for completion in Q1 2022 and as a standalone building, will be the largest data centre in Africa.
Teraco’s announcement comes as several local and international companies are launching data centres in SA.
Last month, German start-up CloudRadar launched data centre facilities in Johannesburg.
In September, Dimension Data told ITWeb of its plan to imminently launch data centres in SA. Last year saw US-based software giant Microsoft open two data centre regions in SA, becoming the first global provider to deliver cloud services from data centres on the African continent.
In April this year, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the opening of the AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region.
In March last year, Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei started offering its cloud services in SA. The company is leasing a data centre in Johannesburg from a partner, from where it is deploying localised public cloud services based on local industry policies, customer requirements and partner conditions.
US-based enterprise software company Oracle in September last year also announced plans to launch data centres in SA this year.
However, Hnizdo, in the interview, said Teraco does not compete with the likes of AWS and Microsoft, but is complementary to their services.
“They all have cloud on-ramps in Teraco – in the case of Microsoft, they have Microsoft ExpessRoute, and AWS has Direct Connect.
“We have competitors like Vodacom, Internet Solutions (now Dimension Data) and Telkom. They provide data centre services and other services. A lot of them are carriers and outsourcers, but we provide data centre services only, so a customer that comes to Teraco has access to an open access platform. If you are deployed in Teraco, you can access whichever carrier you want because we don’t sell carrier services.
“However, if you were in, for example, a Telkom facility, you will not be able to get Vodacom’s connectivity because they will now be selling their competitor’s services. However, with Teraco, you will be able to buy whoever’s services,” he said.
By Admire Moyo IT Web News Editor on IT Web
Image source: IT Web
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