Telecommunications company, Airtel, has recently introduced its new data centre business named Nxtra by Airtel, to facilitate Africa’s digital transformation, and create one of the largest networks of data centres on the continent.
Strategically positioned in major cities to complement existing edge sites, Nxtra is tailored to address the growing demands of African businesses, with its data centre infrastructure designed to host the next generation of computing. The facilities will offer multi-megawatt capacity in phases, adhering to stringent global security standards and ensuring ‘five nines’ availability.
Leveraging Airtel Africa’s extensive fibre footprint, Nxtra aims to provide secure and scalable integrated solutions to global hyper-scalers, large enterprises, startups, SMEs, and government entities.
Airtel Africa’s Group CEO, Segun Ogunsanya, noted that it was necessary for Africa to undergo a rapid increase in data centre capacity to support its digital economy growth. He expressed pride in driving the future of the continent’s digital infrastructure, unlocking opportunities for business growth and contributing to economic prosperity.
The Nxtra initiative aims to enhance the speed of accessing digital services and reduce the cost of managing data through locally available data centre capacity. This, in turn, is expected to fuel innovation and support the development of a new generation of tech talent in Africa. Additionally, Nxtra enables customers to meet data sovereignty requirements while facilitating the offering of local cloud services in the countries where Airtel Africa operates.
The first major Nxtra facility, located in Lagos, Nigeria, is projected to deliver 34 MW of total power, designed to host high-density racks with a focus on achieving a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.3. The facility is slated to go live in mid-2025.
To spearhead Nxtra’s vision, Airtel Africa has appointed Yashnath Issur as the CEO. Issur, formerly the head of Global Data Centre Portfolio Management at Amazon Web Services with 16 years of industry experience, has assembled a team of experts over the past year to execute the strategy and drive the success of Nxtra by Airtel.
