Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, has experienced steady economic growth over the past two decades and currently boasts the largest economy on the continent. With a staggering 90 million internet users, Nigeria has the highest number of African internet users and is ranked tenth globally. The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry is a major contributor to Nigeria’s strong economic growth and has facilitated the rapid development of various industries such as e-commerce, online banking, and digital government.
The burgeoning digital economy has also given rise to the development of data center infrastructure in the country. According to Xalam research, Internet Data Center (IDC) capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) was recorded at 230 MW in 2020, with an average annual growth rate of 30% over five consecutive years. Capacity is projected to increase to anywhere between 350–450 MW by 2024. This remarkable potential has attracted enterprises to invest in IDCs and build large-scale data centers in Nigeria.
CloudExchange, a leading system integrator in West Africa, recognized the tremendous market potential and decided to enter the IDC market. As a new entrant, CloudExchange needed to differentiate itself and establish a foothold in a fiercely competitive environment. To stand out, the company partnered with Huawei to offer superior IDC services with faster response times to requirements, more flexible capacity expansion, and more reliable data centers overall.
To speed up the construction process, CloudExchange chose a Huawei prefabricated modular data center solution. With most devices pre-installed and pre-tested in the factory, the data center only needs to be hoisted onsite, reducing the construction period of the entire project to just seven months. The Huawei FusionDC solution also supports online capacity expansion, with each layer functioning as an independent data center unit, allowing for quick and interruption-free capacity expansion.
CloudExchange’s new data center is the first Uptime Institute Tier IV prefabricated data center in Africa, which means it offers ultra-reliable uptime. Huawei worked closely with CloudExchange to deploy dual-socket diesel generators, dual-fuel tanks, and equipment rooms in a limited space, maximizing space utilization and gaining Uptime Institute Tier IV certification in a significantly streamlined process.
Glad Dibetso, CEO of CloudExchange, expressed his satisfaction with the fruitful partnership with Huawei, saying that their cooperation has quickly obtained market recognition and certification from the Uptime Institute. He hopes that their project will continue to boost ICT industry development in West Africa and propel the ongoing rise of the entire continent.
