Raxio secures land to construct Ethiopia’s first private data centre

“Following the holistic reform that our nation is undergoing, new mobile operators are expected to be licensed soon; as a result, our internet usage is projected to rapidly grow. It is our belief that Raxio Ethiopia will play a paramount role in strengthening and developing the country’s digital infrastructure capabilities. We consider our corporation’s collaboration with Raxio in the development of the ICT Park, which is expected to contribute to the significant growth of the ICT sector, as a great achievement” says Ato Sandokan Debebe, CEO of Industrial Parks Development Corporation.

As the second most populated country on the continent and the fifth largest economy in sub-Saharan Africa, Ethiopia represents a market full of opportunities for new market entrants. With continued sector reforms, Ethiopia’s economy is set to grow by 6.4% in 2021, with digital services contributing significantly to its growth, making the country attractive for global and regional Internet and content providers.

Raxio Ethiopia will sequentially deploy its modules to accommodate an IT-capacity of 1.5MW over the next few years, with the possibility of doubling capacity to 3.0MW as needs grow. According to Robert Mullins, President of Raxio Group, “Raxio’s facilities enable companies such as mobile network operators, content delivery networks and financial service providers to run their critical IT systems in a built-for-purpose, always-on environment. With our module build, we will be able to support growth quickly and tailor our build to the needs of our customers. Raxio Ethiopia will provide a critical and missing part of the nation’s digital infrastructure at an exciting and fast-evolving time in the broader telecoms sector in the country. We are pleased to be moving forward with developing Ethiopia’s first privately owned data centre and to have collaborated closely with the Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC), the Industrial Parks Development Corporation (IPDC) and the ICT Park in reaching this important milestone.”

To meet the increased demand for high quality local storage and data hosting in East and Central Africa, Raxio is planning to open 10-12 new facilities, with the next facilities likely in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The planned data centres will meet the uptime, redundancy and maintainability requirements established under the Tier III standard, and will follow the principle of neutrality to empower new carriers, ISPs, and players as they begin to enter the market amid continued sector reforms and growth in the startup ecosystem.