Paratus is Investing $8.2M to Build Namibia’s Largest Data Centre

The Namibian arm of pan-African network provider Paratus has announced the August 2022 opening of its carrier-neutral Data Center (DC) facility in Windhoek, Namibia.

This new facility, dubbed Armada Data Center by the company, will be Namibia’s first carrier-neutral and largest DC facility.

It will supplement the Equiano Cable, which is scheduled to arrive in Namibia in the coming months and for which Paratus has already constructed the landing station. Paratus is investing $8.2 million to build the Armada Data Center facility on the Brakwater Campus, which will house two separate colocation data halls (DC1 and DC2), each supported by two separate energy center pairs.

A total of 240 cabinets will be housed in 734m2 and will provide essential state-of-the-art colocation, data, and cloud services. According to Paratus, Armada will help meet the ever-increasing customer demand for these services and, because existing facilities in Namibia are at capacity, will fill the market void.

Africa’s Expanding Data Center Market

This demand is in line with global and continental demand for complex colocation services. According to ResearchandMarkets.com, the African data center market will be worth $2 billion by 2020.

According to the Arizton.com market report, the data center market saw $2.663 million in investments in 2021 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.73 percent between 2022 and 2027.

Paratus, which has recently built two DC facilities in Angola and one in Zambia, has already confirmed 55 percent occupancy of one of Namibia’s two Armada Data Halls.

“Our customers recognize that technological advancement in the form of big data, cloud services, and AI (artificial intelligence) is critical to their future success,” says Schalk Erasmus, COO of Paratus.

“The Paratus Armada DC will store and protect client data 24 hours a day, seven days a week; house and physically protect all equipment and computer systems; handle the migration from off-site to the data center; provide backup power generation, and offer an array of add-on services and features,” he continues.

Although Paratus operates its own resilient fiber network that connects the Armada Data Center facility to the rest of the world, it is carrier-neutral, giving clients and tenants host connectivity options and flexibility.

“We are dedicated to providing Africa with a high-quality network.” Our hosting, firewall, and storage capabilities complement our connectivity and network services. We can collaborate with our partners and customers to help Africa realize its full commercial potential. “Armada is yet another testament to that vision,” says Andrew Hall, MD of Paratus Namibia.