The company, part of the Vodafone/Vodacom group, has signed a developed land sub-lease agreement with Industrial Parks Development Corporation (IPDC) to build the centre in the company’s ICT Park, close to Addis Ababa’s Bole international airport.
Anwar Sousa (pictured), CEO of Safaricom Ethiopia, said: “We are excited to establish this win-win partnership with IPDC which will allow us to build our third data centre in Ethiopia since Safaricom Ethiopia was awarded the unified telecommunications service licence in July 2021.”
IPDC was established in 2014 as one of Ethiopia’s public enterprises, with the full support of the government.
The 200-hectare ICT Park started operations in July 2015 and there are now six office buildings plus available service land. It specialises in IT manufacturing, business process outsourcing and IT enabled service.
Safaricom Ethiopia said the Tier-III telco cloud data centre it will build on the land will “contribute to the ambitious digitalisation goals set by the country’s digital strategy”.
The company said the establishment of these data centres “will help improve the availability of latest technologies mainly in the industrial parks to support the digitalisation process, improving efficiency, transparency and productivity.”
Sousa said: “We commit to continue to collaborate with the ICT park.” The technology will “support IPDC initiatives and [help] in creating a smart city within the ICT park through targeted trial of innovative technologies.”
Sandokan Debebe, CEO of IPDC, said: “The construction of a modern data centre within the ICT Park complements the park’s technological theme and ensures that IPDC enjoys reliable connectivity across all parks and digital spaces.”
The two institutions signed a memorandum of understanding that sets the framework for broad areas of collaboration to enable accelerated digitalisation through ICT solutions and facilitate Safaricom Ethiopia’s roll-out of network infrastructure in industrial parks throughout the country.
