Underlining the dominance of South Africa in general, and Johannesburg in particular, in the African data centre market, US-headquartered Vantage Data Centres, described as a leading global provider of hyperscale data centre campuses, has announced the delivery of the first facility on its Johannesburg campus.
Vantage has opened its first data centre (called JNB11) in Africa after breaking ground in 2021. The two-storey facility offers 16MW of critical IT capacity across 12,000 square metres. The project was delivered in ten months, ten days ahead of schedule, with zero lost-time incidents over 1.5 million working hours.
With an investment totalling more than US$1 billion, this 12-hectare campus will include 80MW of IT capacity and more than 60,000 square metres across three data centres once fully developed.
Located in Waterfall City (a mega project which is in fact midway between Pretoria and Johannesburg), the campus complements the area’s thriving data centre ecosystem and leverages its fibre connectivity to the rest of Africa. In addition, the campus aligns with the company’s commitment to sustainability, offering renewable energy options, limiting carbon emissions and maintaining energy-efficient operations with an industry-leading power usage effectiveness (PUE).
With this in mind, in June, Vantage announced it had entered a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with SolarAfrica, a company that has, since 2011, been financing and delivering solar projects across Southern Africa, to support the production of 87MWp of renewable energy to supplement the local grid that powers the campus.
