Airtel launches data center business Nxtra in Africa

Pan-African operator Airtel Africa has launched a new data center business, Nxtra by Airtel, on the continent.

The group aims to build one of the largest networks of data centers in Africa with high-capacity facilities in major cities located strategically across Airtel Africa's footprint.

The news comes a year and a half after the telco announced a data center in Lagos, Nigeria, with the facility expected to go live in mid-2025, delivering 34 megawatts of total power.

The telco said the Lagos data center is designed to host high density racks and integrate the latest best practice construction to achieve 1.3 power usage effectiveness (PUE).

Airtel Africa said it plans to combine its fiber footprint across Africa with its new data centers, which will offer integrated services to global hyper-scalers, large African enterprises, startups, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and governments.

"A rapid increase in data center capacity is needed to support the growth potential of Africa's economy. We're proud to drive the future of Africa's digital infrastructure, unlocking opportunities for businesses to grow and fuelling economic prosperity," Airtel Africa MD Segun Ogunsanya said in a statement.

Nxtra appoints Africa CEO

With all these developments in Africa, Nxtra has appointed former Amazon Web Services Global Data Center Portfolio Head, Yashnath Issur, to lead the charge for the company on the continent.

With over 16 years of experience, Issur has built a team of experts to execute the group's strategy.

Nxtra by Airtel CEO Yashnath Issur. (Source: Nxtra by Airtel).

"Airtel Africa's team has consistently shown our ability to deliver on infrastructure projects across Africa, and we are confident that our next-generation data centers will support our ambition to become the partner of choice for global customers and Africa's newest tech unicorns alike," Ogunsanya added.

The data center company will also enable customers to meet data sovereignty requirements while at the same time enabling more local cloud services to be offered in the countries where it operates.

Data centers everywhere

The African data center market has been growing in recent years, with different companies expanding across the region.

Just last month, Raxio Data Centres announced the official launch of its newest facility in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Raxio already operates in Ethiopia, but this new Tier III certified facility offers secure colocation space for up to 800 racks delivering up to 3 megawatts of IT power.

Earlier in November 2023, west African connectivity and data center solutions provider, MainOne, launched an expanded open access, carrier-neutral data center in Côte d'Ivoire.

In October 2023, Liquid Intelligent Technologies teamed up with a provider of carrier-neutral data center services, Wingu.Africa, to launch a second Azure hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) stack in Tanzania.

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— Matshepo Sehloho, Associate Editor, Connecting Africa