Lagos State government has said that as of 2021, data centre investments in the state has crossed over $1 billion. The state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who disclosed this, yesterday, at the ground breaking ceremony of Rack Centre 12mw IT power capacity date centre facility, said the increasing IT infrastructure utilisation caused by the proliferation of technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, Software Defined Networks, Smart cities and so on, aptly demonstrate the fact that “we are at an inflection point in the way we conduct business.”
Sanwo-Olu, who was represented by his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, said technology had revolutionised and continued to change industries and business models, adding that companies like Rack Centre are at the heart of making the future possible and the dreams plausible. He described Rack Centre as an organisation with a reputation of excellent track record of world-class service delivery.
According to him, the firm is an organisation, which today has a great and productive relationship with Lagos State. The governor said today’s groundbreaking is a testament to the trust and faith investors and the wider Lagos IT market have in this company, saying that a significant expansion like this presents the opportunity not just for a growth in services, but also allows for a pushing of the technology envelope.
Sanwo-Olu said: “In 2021, investments in data centre infrastructure domiciled in Lagos State grew by over $1billion. This in itself is testament to the enabling environment and captive market the state provides. We are certain that demand for future Rack Centre services are already available within this market from both a private and public sector perspective.” He said that the state had series of initiatives and programmes that would deliver one of the most digitised cities in Africa.
“From our 3000km metropolitan fibre optic project to our Electronic Geographic Information System and our Smart city initiatives and implementations, Lagos is poised to be a significant IT hub for the region. It is in this vein that this groundbreaking today is lock-step and in line with the future outlook of this city.
“Additionally, your carrier neutral status and your local interconnect ambitions will further strengthen Lagos’ position as a digital economic centre. Companies with foreign IT workloads and services can relocate their assets locally thereby strengthening Lagos’ position in the global IT market.”
On his part, the Group Chief Executive Officer, Rack Centre, Jasper Lankhorst, said the new build will enhance and broaden the capacity of the company to serve more clients in Nigeria with an IT load of 12MW as against the LGS 1 facility, which has an IT load of 1.5MW.
“With about 85 million Internet subscribers, more than any country in Africa or Europe, and the largest population and GDP in Africa, Nigeria is a key entry point for global telecommunications, content, and cloud players seeking access to the region. We are embarking on this new build to bring applications and data closer to the user and improve the quality and speed of the user experience’’ Lankhorst said.
Lankhorst explained that the new facility, just like LGS 1 data centre, will offer the unique competitive edge of reliability as a Tier III Constructed Facility offering 100 per cent uptime with Zero downtime and 10 levels of physical security with biometric, CCTV monitoring, and 24/7 Command Centre.
“At Rack Centre, we are 100 per cent Carrier and Cloud Neutral which means we are not owned or affiliated with any telecommunications carrier, ISP or managed service provider and do not compete, therefore offering great opportunities for all our digital ecosystem partners to grow their businesses at Rack Centre. We offer unrestricted interconnects between customers, as it allows them to manage traffic to get better value, lower latency, and higher resilience,” said Lankhorst.
He revealed that Rack Centre, with over 60 carriers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Cloud and Content delivery networks, offers a wide and unrestricted choice of services for its customers. Fibre access to the facility is through three diverse routes and includes all active undersea cables on the Atlantic coast of Africa.
