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African data center developer Raxio Group will build Ethiopia’s first private data center in Addis Ababa in response to the increasing use of the Internet in the country.
Raxio Ethiopia will build the server farm at Ethio ICT Park, an industrial park for digital industries completed five years ago.
It has completed its acquisition of the land and plans to complete works on the 1.5MW hub in the third quarter of next year.
The goal is to help Ethiopia’s growing data usage as mobile phone ownership and internet use expand in line with the country’s rapid economic growth.
Currently, only 12 million people own smartphones in the country, 11% of the population, and there are 21 million Internet users. However, the use of mobile phones is increasing at a rate of around 18% per year.
Robert Mullins, President of Raxio, said: “Raxio Ethiopia will provide a critical and missing part of the nation’s digital infrastructure at an exciting and rapidly evolving time in the country’s broader telecommunications sector.
“We are pleased to continue to advance the development of Ethiopia’s first privately owned data center and to have worked closely with the Ethiopian Investment Commission, the Industrial Park Development Corporation and the ICT Park to achieve this milestone.”
The center will be located on one of Ethiopia’s main fiber optic cable routes and will have capacity for around 400 racks with 1.5 MW of power. This is expected to double in size as demand increases.
Raxio was founded in 2018 by the American investment company greenfield Roha, which specializes in African industrial companies.
Earlier this year, it completed its first server farm at the Namanve Industrial Park in Kampala, Uganda. Twelve more are being planned, with the first set to be developed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mozambique.
Image: Mobile phone use in Ethiopia is increasing at a rate of 18% annually (Dreamstime)
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