Raxio Group breaks ground for construction of Raxio Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire

The event was attended by members of the Ivorian Government, led by His Excellency the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy. Local officials, members of Raxio’s Board of Directors, the Group CEO and Raxio’s local team in the Côte d’Ivoire - alongside partners, customers, and representatives from the media. During the event, Raxio’s representatives highlighted the technical features of the upcoming facility and its transformational impact on the country and the region. The ceremony marks the first of multiple phases of construction, leading to a ready-for-service date of the data centre in the second half of 2023.

This facility marks the Group’s anticipated entry into West Africa. As the regional hub for the West African Economic Monetary and Economic Union (WAEMU), which includes Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. Raxio Côte d’Ivoire is strategically located to serve this economic block, with regulation allowing storage and movement of data by banks and other financial institutions within the territory.

With his remarks made at the ceremony, Robert Mullins, CEO of Raxio Group highlighted the role the data centre will play in supporting the country and the locality: “We’re thrilled to break ground on this facility and firmly establish ourselves in West Africa – a key growth vector for our continued expansion. Abidjan is the ideal position for organizations and businesses from across the WAEMU to colocate their mission critical infrastructure in a professionally managed, highly reliable facility – and Raxio is proud to be building the first of its scale and caliber in the region.” 

“Reliability and guaranteed uptime are key components of Raxio’s offering and we are proud to contribute a fundamental cornerstone to facilitate Côte d’Ivoire’s continued digital growth. Thanks to its location, our facility here at VITIB is planned to incorporate renewable energy feeds allowing us to provide our services in the least impactful way to the environment, our drive to build sustainable projects is strong and we’re pleased that Raxio Côte d’Ivoire will provide another example.”

Digital transformation in Côte d’Ivoire has accelerated in recent years with internet penetration currently at 36.3% and mobile penetration reaching 137.8%. Côte d’Ivoire has the 11th highest GDP in Africa, and the 17th highest GDP per capita, with an economy largely driven by the services sector and a thriving middle-class. With the internet costs and reliability set to dramatically improve in coming years, due to new upcoming subsea cable landings and investments in terrestrial infrastructure, it’s expected that consumption of data and local content in both the consumer and enterprise segments will increase significantly, and digital infrastructure is needed to support this.

Raxio Abidjan will scale as customer needs grow, with capacity to accommodate approximately 800 racks and deliver 3MW of IT power. Its size will meet local needs whilst retaining the ability to scale further to capture future demand; offering customers an optimized environment for their IT equipment in a state-of-the-art facility, built to accommodate the entire spectrum of customers - from SMEs to hyperscale CDNs It will be fully furnished with industry leading technology solutions that not only ensure full redundancy and maximized uptime, but also optimize power consumption and energy efficiency.

Raxio has assembled experienced technical partners specializing in design, engineering, and construction to complement its internal team. Master Power Technologies, who last year entered a long-term partnership with Raxio, will lead on mechanical and engineering works. In addition, HCCP Properties have supported Raxio Côte d’Ivoire’s development locally since its inception.

Raxio Côte d’Ivoire is part of the Raxio Group portfolio, which includes Raxio Uganda, Raxio Ethiopia, Raxio DRC, Raxio Mozambique and Raxio Tanzania. The Company is on track to complete multiple data centre investments across Africa to meet the increased demand for international standard data centre infrastructure in the region.