Digital infrastructure company Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX) today revealed plans to enter the South African market. The company announced a $160 million data center investment in Johannesburg to enhance its current footprint on the African continent in Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.
According to the official announcement, the new data center is expected to open mid-2024.
Equinix has been expanding its global footprint recently with announcement of plans to build a new data center in Malaysia and investment in a new data center in Colombia. Additionally, the company completed the acquisition of West African data center and connectivity solutions provide, MainOne, in April 2022.
With the new investment, the company enters strategically important connectivity hub for digital networks. The South African market boasts a significant network of submarine communications cables, established at several points across the country’s 2,850 kilometres of coastline.
Eugene Bergen, President, EMEA, Equinix, said:
We entered the African continent earlier this year with the acquisition of MainOne, the leading West African data center and connectivity solutions provider with presence in Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. This investment will give both South African businesses the opportunity to expand internationally and global businesses to expand into South Africa.
Both will be able to accelerate their growth by rapidly scaling their infrastructure, easily adopting hybrid multicloud architectures and interconnecting with business partners through the Platform Equinix ecosystem of more than 10,000 customers.
