Equinix, a US-headquartered digital infrastructure company with a global ecosystem of over 10,500 customers, is expanding the capacity of its Johannesburg data centre to 24MW. The company entered the South African market in 2024 with a $160 million investment in its first regional facility. Located in Germiston near the Oliver Tambo International airport, the site operates as a connection point for enterprise customers to access cloud providers, connectivity companies and systems integrators.
The first phase of the location is complete and provides 4MW of capacity. Two further phases of 10MW each are planned for the site. Sandile Dube, MD for South Africa at Equinix, indicated that market demand will dictate the timeline for the subsequent phases. “What's quite important to note is we are not just a co-location provider. We’re really here to ensure all of our clients and partners form part of our global ecosystem that comprises over 10 500 customers, that comprises all of the cloud providers, that comprises systems integrators, connectivity providers and the like,” Dube said.
The facility features liquid-cooling infrastructure to support enterprise artificial intelligence deployments. African businesses are requesting data centre space capable of running power-intensive workloads. “We've been quite fortunate in that we are relatively new in the South African market and therefore the facility that we are in today has been designed and built with that in mind, where we are provisioning for the emergence of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence. When one looks at the power entities, for instance, that are required by AI, we have that available in Johannesburg 1,” Dube said.
Unlike its entry into West Africa through an acquisition, Equinix built a greenfield operation for its South African debut. The company views the country's position between the Atlantic and Indian oceans as a geographic advantage for regional connectivity. “South Africa is already the gateway to the rest of Africa. We've got a stable infrastructure and we've got the most developed infrastructure compared to the rest of the continent. Johannesburg in itself is a growing interconnected hub across the continent,” Dube said.
The digital infrastructure provider allocated a R7.5 billion budget for its operations in the country. “So, we are at a R7.5 billion budget in terms of our expansion in South Africa as a whole. Some of the projects that we've announced are provisioned from that budget. The additional land parcels give us the option to expand over a period of time as the business evolves and demand develops,” Dube said. Earlier this year, the company acquired additional land in Cape Town and Johannesburg to support potential growth.
