• Teraco has broken ground on its new JB5 data centre.
• The data centre is being built to meet the needs of hyperscale clients.
• The data centre will use sustainable energy practices.

Africa is becoming increasingly hungry for data-intensive services and platforms. This means a greater need for data centres and Teraco has announced a new expansion at its Isando Campus.

The expansion – dubbed JB5 – is a new hyperscale data centre facility that will have 30MW of critical power load when complete.

“South Africa is a springboard for cloud provision into Africa and, as a result, has become the technology and data centre hub for sub-Saharan Africa. Massive global investments into undersea cables, like Equiano and 2Africa, further strengthen this position. This will enable global cloud providers to service not only the South African market but also the rest of the sub-Saharan African region,” explained Teraco’s chief executive officer Jan Hnizdo.

The construction will make provisions for sustainable practices. For example, the cooling for the data centre will make use of a closed-loop chilled water system that incorporates 100 percent free air cooling. This design is said to improve power usage effectiveness through limited consumption while also reducing water usage to zero.

The 55 000 square metre building will be built in a single phase and when complete will be comprised of twelve 1000 square metre halls. As mentioned, the data centre will be built to meet global hyperscale requirements.

Just last year Teraco completed construction of its smaller but still important CT2 data centre which is similarly geared for hyperscale clients.

“Teraco is committed to growing its capacity footprint across its core hubs. We ensure our clients have the flexibility to scale and take advantage of the digital transformation across sub-Saharan Africa. We continue to invest significantly in the region’s ICT infrastructure and have built Africa’s largest data centre platform. We take pride in enabling open access interconnection and providing world-class data centre infrastructure for all our clients,” Hnizdo concludes.

JB5 will be strategically located alongside JB1 and JB3, one of Africa’s most interconnected facilities boasting over 14 000 interconnects.