Great article Rose! In your opinion, do you think the major players in the data center space within Africa would largely be comprised of the global companies - Amazon, Microsoft etc? And what about telecom companies?
Hi Malik, great question. Actually a lot of the major players are African companies like Teraco, Liquid, ADC; and many of these actually host the global players in their facilities. As the space grows we expect to see a broader mix of players, but African outfits have a strong foothold so far
I see. Thank you Rose! I’ve been interested lately in data centers in Africa as I believe as Africa continues to develop, it’s likely we would have the most to gain in this area.
I hadn't thought about data centers as anchor customers - though I worry that this might simply mean that data centers integrate their own power generation source into the cost of building a data center, rather than relying on the (unreliable) grid. This might be OK for climate goals, if that power infrastructure was solar, but it wouldn't solve any of the existing grid issues for other customers, so no positive externalities.
Hi Lauren -- true that a very expensive and unreliable grid is pushing lots of energy users to bypass the grid and self generate. But data center sector still relies on PPAs with utilities (with appropriate backups to ensure full uptime), and also can do bespoke collaborations with utilities (e.g. the KenGen example in my piece). But yes flight of large energy consumers is a big issue for African utilities. Collaborations with data centers is a way to try mitigate this
Just when I’m certain that AI only poses extractive purposes on the continent, you come in with a glass half full. Thanks for the perspective-shift.
Great article Rose! In your opinion, do you think the major players in the data center space within Africa would largely be comprised of the global companies - Amazon, Microsoft etc? And what about telecom companies?
Thanks
Hi Malik, great question. Actually a lot of the major players are African companies like Teraco, Liquid, ADC; and many of these actually host the global players in their facilities. As the space grows we expect to see a broader mix of players, but African outfits have a strong foothold so far
I see. Thank you Rose! I’ve been interested lately in data centers in Africa as I believe as Africa continues to develop, it’s likely we would have the most to gain in this area.
I hadn't thought about data centers as anchor customers - though I worry that this might simply mean that data centers integrate their own power generation source into the cost of building a data center, rather than relying on the (unreliable) grid. This might be OK for climate goals, if that power infrastructure was solar, but it wouldn't solve any of the existing grid issues for other customers, so no positive externalities.
Hi Lauren -- true that a very expensive and unreliable grid is pushing lots of energy users to bypass the grid and self generate. But data center sector still relies on PPAs with utilities (with appropriate backups to ensure full uptime), and also can do bespoke collaborations with utilities (e.g. the KenGen example in my piece). But yes flight of large energy consumers is a big issue for African utilities. Collaborations with data centers is a way to try mitigate this