A roadmap for Africa’s data centre market
The African landscape is inconsistent, opaque and complex — but there is a pattern. It is a hub-and-spoke market, anchored by four hubs.
By any measure the African data centre market will see massive growth over the next decade. But the landscape is inconsistent, opaque and complex — so the useful questions for any operator or investor are: where does your firm sit in it, can you leverage colocation or cloud, and is it worth the time and money?
A hub-and-spoke market
Growth is forming around a hub-and-spoke model, with development concentrated in four regional hub countries: South Africa (south), Egypt (north), Kenya (east) and Nigeria (west). These hubs are where the development is; over the coming years it radiates out to the surrounding regions as demand for data grows.
How a market develops
Each country is on its own journey, but a common pattern draws the landscape together: the telecom market de-regulates, which encourages competition and carrier-neutrality; data usage and the need to minimise latency grow; colocation operators enter to offer enterprises a managed, carrier-neutral, off-premise solution; global players follow; and finally, as IoT and 5G take hold, data centres move closer to users and edge facilities appear.
Coastal vs inland
Submarine cables shape the map too. Where a cable lands, a Cable Landing Station becomes a key connection point — carriers distribute from it, cloud and content providers place local servers, and ISPs manage local traffic. Over time that coastal location connects inland, bandwidth rises and the cost of data falls, so growth moves from the coast inland.
The four hubs, today
South Africa (south). By far the most developed market on the continent — open telecoms, a vibrant colocation scene (Teraco, now part of Digital Realty; Vantage's 120 MW Johannesburg campus; Yondr to follow), and hyperscalers building in both Johannesburg and Cape Town. Still room to grow as cloud, content and the edge expand.
Egypt (north). The earliest-stage of the four; no clear hub has established yet, but Egypt is the likeliest given its economy and telecom/IT sector. The telecom market is still closed and regulated — until it opens, colocation operators have little incentive to enter, though cloud operators are partnering with local telcos to serve demand.
Kenya (east). The established East African hub, driven by a government opening the economy. Open telecoms (boosted by cables like 2Africa in Mombasa), a vibrant colocation market with local (IXAfrica), pan-African (ADC, PAIX) and global (iColo / Digital Realty) players, and hyperscalers present but not yet at scale.
Nigeria (west). The clear West African hub so far, though Ghana still contends. A relatively open but deeply fragmented carrier market makes joined-up regional connectivity hard. Colocation is developing fast (ADC, Kasi, OADC, Rackcentre) and M&A is heating up — Equinix acquiring MainOne, Digital Realty investing in Medallion — a strong signal from global players. Hyperscalers have deployed cloud nodes but no large facilities yet.
And the rest of Africa
Development is not confined to the four hubs. Ethiopia — 110 m+ people, a telecom market opening up, bordering cable-rich Djibouti — could become a north-east powerhouse, with facilities under construction in an Addis Ababa ICT park. Morocco, at the confluence of Africa, the Middle East and Europe, has strong hub potential for the north and west. And Ghana remains a genuine rival to Nigeria. The whole is hard to grasp, but the patterns are clear once you dig in.