Datacentre operators at all times have to take a look at new routes, to redistribute workloads and implement enlargement methods. That’s a truth of life as they reply to stresses from value erosion, regulatory interventions in conventional markets and wider geopolitics. These are among the many key challenges confronted by Digital Realty, which has opened its first datacentre in Ghana within the wake of elevated infrastructure investments in rising places throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
In November 2025, Digital Realty minimize the ribbon on its first datacentre close to Ghana’s capital, Accra – the 1.7MW, 1,100m2 ACR2 new-build. ACR1 was its preliminary cable touchdown station facility. The identical month, Equinix introduced a $22m (£16.3m) facility in Lagos, its third in Nigeria.
Alternatives have been broadening since Meta’s 2Africa subsea cable made landfall close to Accra in 2025, the sixth fibre cable to attach the nation and operated by South Africa-headquartered MTN Group subsidiary Bayobab.
Paula Cogan, EMEA managing director for Digital Realty, says the operator now has six datacentres in South Africa, 4 in Kenya, 4 in Nigeria, and one in Mozambique. The thought is to create a “constant platform of datacentre and colocation services worldwide” that follows main demand drivers.
“We count on important progress within the Africa area,” she says.
Africa’s 58 international locations are residence to round 19% of the world inhabitants. Usually, they’re mobile-first, as a consequence of a historic lack of infrastructure, and cost platforms are a specific energy. African cell knowledge use has been rising at round 40% yearly – far increased than in different main economies.
Cogan says ACR2 will grow to be a “marquee” connectivity hub for Ghana. The London Web Alternate (Linx) signed up in October 2025.
Supporting nationwide and worldwide necessities
Past supporting worldwide interconnect, enterprise and enterprises “will not have to decide on between compliance and efficiency”, says Joseph Koranteng, Digital Realty’s managing director in Ghana. “ACR2 delivers each right here in Accra – the reliability, compliance and connectivity that banks, fintechs, telcos and cloud suppliers want.”
That’s partly about knowledge sovereignty as properly. And throughout the board, pan-Africa connectivity is enhancing, with 77 subsea cables touchdown on the continent as of 2025. Digital Realty had anticipated these enhancements.
ACR2 delivers each compliance and efficiency right here in Accra – the reliability, compliance and connectivity that banks, fintechs, telcos and cloud suppliers want Joseph Koranteng, Digital Realty
“It’s driving down latency, it’s driving up reliability and, as a consequence, driving up investor confidence,” Cogan explains. “Analysts inform us Africa has lower than 2% of the world’s datacentre capability. And in Ghana, capability by way of 2030 is projected to develop to 1.5-2.2GW from lower than 0.5GW as we speak.”
Digital Realty arrived in Africa in 2019, buying Kenya’s iColo, then including Mozambique and Nigeria. In 2022, it moved into the most important African market, South Africa, with the acquisition of Teraco.
Cogan says partnering domestically with small, established suppliers has been key to navigating native legal guidelines and rules, together with allowing necessities for globally constant and suitable design, engineering and development, together with round security and sustainability.
“Africa is a tapestry of extremely numerous international locations, cultures, economies and regulatory environments,” she says.
The corporate felt the Ghana political and regulatory surroundings was extra navigable than that of Nigeria, for instance. So ACR2 is a wholly-owned growth, whereas in Lagos, Digital Realty entered the market with the acquisition of native datacentre operator Medallion. Digital Realty has used this mannequin of partnerships and joint ventures in lots of markets, in keeping with Cogan.
“We even have an area group after which a really common cohort of people that go in to help these groups on the bottom,” she provides.
For instance, Digital Realty’s head of well being and security just lately inspected all the corporate’s services to make sure operation in keeping with its security requirements. The corporate does that usually, says Cogan.
Native partnering additionally helps ship a “platform of abilities” on which the corporate can construct. Cloud, web and hyperscale will all develop, with extra verticals and sectors to comply with, though it’s usually “a long-term guess”, she suggests.
Marcel Louw, Digital Realty managing director in Africa, additional emphasises the significance of inclusivity, and favouring robust native partnerships and options.
“In Ghana, success actually comes from working carefully with the federal government and native communities. You want buy-in from each,” he says.
“We’re lucky to have robust native companions, together with our three way partnership accomplice, Pembani Remgro infrastructure managers, an African infrastructure-focused personal fairness fund, along with a Ghana-based administration group led by our in-country managing director. Joseph Koranteng understands the native panorama much better than expatriates would.”
The federal government can be supportive, together with through the Ghana Funding Promotion Middle, with new insurance policies round datacentre operations and digital infrastructure in growth. Enter has been sought from all stakeholders to spice up digitisation.
“In comparison with some markets, the surroundings is comparatively pragmatic and pro-investment,” says Louw. “We already host a mixture of ISPs [internet service providers] and enterprise prospects, and over time this can broaden to incorporate extra native firms in addition to massive multinationals.”
Growing native digital ecosystems
The bigger image is about persevering with to construct and develop a digital ecosystem across the datacentre that features content material suppliers, cloud platforms, networks and enterprise prospects.
ACR2 anchors to the Ghana IX web alternate in addition to Linx, and over time, the operator desires to attach extra worldwide exchanges into Accra, whether or not from Europe, Africa or elsewhere. Meta has urged that 2Africa by itself may enhance African GDP by as much as $36.9bn in three years.
The 45,000km 2Africa cable alone spans 50 jurisdictions, providing 180Tbps (terabits per second) of trunk capability for high-bandwidth, low-latency entry. It’s the first cable challenge to supply steady capability across the African continent whereas connecting international locations in Africa, Asia, the Center East and Europe, says Louw.
The imaginative and prescient is for ACR2 to grow to be key to Digital Realty’s world platform of about 25 international locations and 50 metro areas. That can come through 2Africa and satellite tv for pc connectivity, serving prospects with its ServiceFabric software program platform to attach, handle and management buyer datacentre infrastructure and community providers, says Louw.
Ghanaian cell community suppliers, together with MTN and Vodafone/Telecel, have laid terrestrial fibre networks throughout all of the nation’s areas and 38 cities, with additional enlargement required. Authorities initiatives embrace some 780km of 100Gbps (gigabits per second) fibre optic networking throughout Ghana’s rural Jap hall, accomplished from Ho to Bawku in 2015, then prolonged to Accra in 2018. Linking to the capital’s Nationwide Knowledge Centre at one finish, it strengthens communications to Burkina Faso on the different.
Louw says entry to enough, inexpensive, dependable energy infrastructure is vital, as it’s in every single place. The previous few years have seen “important” native and worldwide funding to stabilise and enhance Ghana’s energy sector, together with the discount of brownouts and different deliberate and unplanned outages. For datacentres, reliability is every little thing, so this has boosted confidence.
On the telecoms facet, elevated consolidation amongst community operators has additionally improved protection and repair high quality. In the meantime, new satellite tv for pc suppliers akin to Starlink have entered the market.
However Louw says entry to renewables stays a problem throughout West Africa, though there may be robust potential for photo voltaic and wind. Signing direct energy buy agreements with energy mills can be tougher than in Europe or the US. Few initiatives are massive sufficient, and supporting laws is commonly absent.
“It isn’t all unfavourable, nevertheless, because the Kenyan grid is now estimated at greater than 90% renewable,” says Louw. “That was not the case 10 years in the past. That’s pushed by long-term funding in clear power and sustained help for local weather change initiatives. In fact, ACR2 is a greenfield growth, so we’re nonetheless early in our journey.”
General, Ghana is a much more credible and enticing location for digital infrastructure as we speak than it was even 5 or 10 years in the past, however the largest problem is consciousness, Louw explains.
He says the market in West Africa has but to understand how colocation can profit its economies. Many organisations stay unfamiliar with colocation and its associated value efficiencies, resilience, safety and scalability. This implies there’s nonetheless an “training element” to deploy, with demand to comply with connectivity enlargement.
Bringing high-tech in if wanted
Synthetic intelligence (AI) adoption throughout Africa is just small-scale to date. When the market is prepared, worldwide expertise, requirements and applied sciences – together with direct liquid cooling – might be introduced in. Proper now, for Ghana, it’s nonetheless about constructing out connectivity, dependable services and cloud on-ramps. Moreover, Digital Realty’s innovation lab in Virginia could be a hands-on AI sandbox the place colocation companions, enterprises and prospects can take a look at and validate options.
So long as it’s clear that we’re right here to construct one thing lasting, not merely to make a fast return, sentiment stays constructive. Our robust desire is at all times to rent and practice domestically Marcel Louw, Digital Realty
“If and when critical AI demand emerges, we now have the technical functionality to adapt present services or construct new ones to help it,” says Louw. “The benefit we now have is our wider African footprint. We’ve seen how this performs out in east and southern Africa: prospects begin small, get snug, see the advantages, after which broaden.”
Particularly, Digital Realty is tailoring its native technique to assist banks, cost platforms and different monetary establishments transition from on-premise server rooms to professionally managed colocation environments, demonstrating the resilience, safety and scalability advantages this offers, he provides.
Suggestions from native communities has been encouraging. Throughout Africa, help tends to develop when individuals see native workers employed, abilities transferred, and investments being long-term moderately than speculative.
“So long as it’s clear that we’re right here to construct one thing lasting, not merely to make a fast return, sentiment stays constructive,” says Louw. “Our robust desire is at all times to rent and practice domestically. We additionally ship native workers overseas for coaching – though outbound visas are complicated, notably for the UK, the US and components of Europe.”
Alan Howard, a principal analyst at Omdia, says historically “tough” markets that embrace sub-Saharan Africa and South America are opening up. A number of components, akin to geopolitics, saturation and price, have pushed operators to broaden their view. Sub-Saharan Africa is residence to a billion individuals – Nigeria alone has 240 million, with Ghana almost 36 million and Côte d’Ivoire about 33 million.
“In Africa, Equinix acquired MainOne and Digital Realty Teraco, Medallion and iColo, all in 2020 to 2022, setting the stage for an evolution,” Howard confirms. “Advances in energy and community infrastructure join extra of the inhabitants, with subsea cables interconnecting world markets.”
