R15 billion data centre campus planned for Joburg

·13 Oct 2021

Vantage Data Centers plans to invest over R15 billion ($1 billion) in its first‐ever African campus, to be based in Johannesburg.

The 80MW campus will be in Johannesburg’s Waterfall City, a thriving business and data centre ecosystem in the heart of the continent’s largest data centre market.

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.

“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,” said Antoine Boniface, president, Vantage EMEA. “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.”

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, the 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.”

From its initial US 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.