Competing with massive data

Data centres are set to expand in SA, which raises questions about the sources of their energy and water, their

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Over the past few months, plans for significant “hyperscale” expansion projects in South Africa have emerged that would push IT power load to well over 1,200MW equivalent to just more than one stage of Eskom load shedding (1,000MW).

The two biggest projects on the cards involve the Teraco Group (the largest data centre provider in South Africa with an IT load of nearly 190MW) and the Johannesburg newcomer, the Cavaleros Group.

Shortly before Christmas, Cavaleros announced plans to build two new local data centres a whopping 360MW campus on a 100ha site in Cape Town and a 200MW campus on a 40ha site in the Kosmosdal-Samrand area north of Johannesburg.

Whereas Teraco is a colocation operator (renting out data centre space to about 670 customers), Cavaleros's new Cosmas Data City project is believed to be linked mainly to the Microsoft Corporation. In a joint announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa and Microsoft president Brad Smith, the US multinational confirmed a further investment of R5.4-billion (in addition to its previous investment of R20.4-billion over the past three years) to establish South Africa's first "enterprise-grade" data centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

However, neither Cavaleros nor Microsoft would confirm (or deny) whether the two had entered into a business relationship to develop the two Cosmas Data City developments by far the biggest data centres in South Africa and Africa.

A spokesperson for Cavaleros said: "All information relating to occupiers or users is subject to strict nondisclosure agreements." And Microsoft's local PR consultants said: "Microsoft does not typically share details about its data centre suppliers and vendors and does not have any new updates to share at this stage."

Cavaleros said the two new centres would be built in phases, but did not give any timelines on starting or completion schedules.