Airtel has announced its entry into the data centre business through Nxtra by Airtel (“Nxtra”), a new data centre business. With increased demand for data centre facilities across the continent, this is the right time for Airtel to try its luck.
With Nxtra, Airtel plans to build the largest network of Data centres in Africa. The company says that it will have high capacity data centres in major cities across the continent.
The first major Nxtra facility in Lagos, Nigeria, will deliver 34 MW of total power. It is designed to host high density racks and integrate the latest best practice construction to achieve 1.3 power usage effectiveness (PUE). It is expected to be live in mid-2025.
Nxtra’s ambition will allow it to serve the growing need of African enterprises and its data centre infrastructure will be designed to host the next generation of computing, while providing multi-MW capacity in a phased manner.
These facilities will meet stringent global security requirements and meet ‘five nines’1 availability. Coupled with Airtel Africa’s extensive fibre footprint, Nxtra offers secure and scalable integrated solutions to global hyper-scalers, large African enterprises, startups, SMEs and governments.
Yashnath Issur As CEO
Airtel has appointed Yashnath Issur who previously was head of Global Data Centre Portfolio Management at Amazon Web Services, as CEO of Nxtra by Airtel. Yashnath has 16 years of experience in the industry and has, over the past year, built a team of experts to execute on the strategy.
Airtel Africa’s Group CEO, Segun Ogunsanya said: “A rapid increase in data centre capacity is needed to support the growth potential of Africa’s digital 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’s team has consistently shown our ability to deliver on infrastructure projects across Africa, and we are confident that our next generation data centres will support our ambition to become the partner of choice for global customers and Africa’s newest tech unicorns alike.”
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