Vantage Data Centers Expands to Africa with a R15 Billion Flagship Johannesburg Campus in the Continent’s Largest Data Centre Market in Waterfall City
Massive investment brings new business and positive economic impacts to Johannesburg
Johannesburg, South Africa, 13 Oct 2021: Vantage Data Centers plans to invest over R15-billion in its first‐ever African campus, which will be based in Johannesburg – the heart of the continent’s largest data centre market. The 80MW campus will help foster economic growth, stimulate job creation, and lead the way in energy‐efficient design.
Vantage is a leading global provider of hyperscale data centre campuses. A data centre is a dedicated space for servers and IT equipment. A hyperscale (wholesale) data centre scales this up to comprise hundreds of thousands of servers. Vantage’s carrier‐neutral Johannesburg campus will include 60 000 square metres of data space across three facilities once fully developed, making it the largest on the continent.
Antoine Boniface, president, Vantage EMEA, says, “Johannesburg is the data centre hub for sub‐Saharan Africa due to its strategic location, IT ecosystem, fibre connectivity to the rest of Africa and the availability of renewable energy. We look forward to opening the doors of our first African facility to our customers and becoming part of the local community. Our first campus has a planned investment of more than R15-billion, and it will add jobs to impact the local economy positively.”
Indirectly, the potential impact is significant. Having an African campus could create a cost‐effective digital infrastructure solution for myriad fintech companies and local businesses.
The Johannesburg campus will consist of three facilities across 30 acres (12 hectares). The first phase of the campus, slated for completion by Q3, 2022, will include a 16MW building. The design will follow Vantage’s standardised campus blueprint, which emphasises sustainable construction practices with industry‐leading power usage effectiveness. Incremental energy solutions will be prominent, including electric vehicle charging stations. The campus will be powered by its own, on‐site, high‐voltage substation.
Attacq Limited (Attacq), JSE listed REIT and developer of Waterfall City and Waterfall Logistics Hub, is partnering with Vantage to develop a campus that is tailored to meet the requirements of Vantage’s global campus blueprint.
Attacq CEO Jackie van Niekerk said, “With a scalable, fit‐for‐future logistics hub and a world‐class corporate campus, Waterfall City has an established track record of attracting leading international businesses such as BMW, PwC, Massbuild, Cotton On and Cummins to the precinct. As the developers of Waterfall City, Attacq is working with Vantage to build a campus that is tailored to meet the organisation’s global requirements while still leveraging Waterfall’s unique capacity to scale its tenant footprints according to evolving company and market demand. We are thrilled to have Vantage Data Centers’ join our precinct, and we look forward to welcoming them as a member of our community.”
Sureel Choksi, president and CEO, Vantage Data Centers, concludes that Vantage is excited about its first African venture, “Vantage has seen strong demand from our customers for high quality, hyperscale data centre facilities across the globe, and we are excited to meet this demand by expanding to Africa’s largest market. With our global expansion across five continents in just two and a half years, we have become one of the fastest‐growing hyperscale data centre providers in the world.”
From its initial U.S. roots, Vantage first moved into two Canadian markets in early 2019 before expanding to six European markets in 2020 and to five in Asia Pacific in 2021.
