The Congolese capital Brazzaville is to house a data centre, supported by funding of €66.55 million (about US$72.2 million) including US$57 million from the African Development Bank (ADB) and US$15.70 million from the government of Congo.
The ADB reports that 600 kilometres of fibre optic cable will be laid via the Congo River, with interconnecting routes to Cameroon and the Central African Republic, along with the building of the data centre itself, for which some US$15 million of the overall funding has been allocated to build and run.
The three-level data centre will have server rooms, monitoring and supervision rooms, and meeting and conference rooms, as well as locations for the energy and air-conditioning equipment. The centre should be delivered by December 2024.
There is, inevitably, a digital sovereignty angle to this development. At the moment much of the data produced in Congo has to be stored somewhere else. Once the data centre is built it is hoped it will host all public data, as well as that of telecoms operators, banks, insurance companies and other private firms that want to have it hosted in the country, along with back-ups of any primary storage sites they use.
The Data Centre Dynamics website says that the operator of the data centre is still unknown; the ADB says it will be managed by a 'delegate' once the work is finished. Other specifications of the data centre have also not been shared.
While some news services claim this is a first for the country or region, according to regulator ARPCE’s website in 2021 Brazzaville had three data centres belonging to ARPCE, the Ministry of Finance and MTN Congo. There was also one data centre in Pointe-Noire.
The Data Centre Dynamics website adds that earlier this year, the government launched a data centre in Pointe-Noire. It holds capacity for 54 racks across 156 square metres.
