The investment will lead to the development of a new data centre that is expected to open in mid-2024 and will augment its current footprint on the continent in Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.
Equinix says it is now entering one of the largest and most digitally developed nations on the African continent with its latest investment.
South Africa is already a strategically important connectivity hub for digital networks and boasts a significant network of submarine communications and cables.
These links between countries and continents are established across several points across the country’s 2,850km of coastline.
“We entered the African continent earlier this year with the acquisition of MainOne, the leading West African data centre and connectivity solutions provider with presence in Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire,” said Eugene Bergen, President, EMEA at Equinix.
“This investment will give both South African businesses the opportunity to expand internationally and global businesses to expand into South Africa. Both will be able to accelerate their growth by rapidly scaling their infrastructure, easily adopting hybrid multicloud architectures and interconnecting with business partners through the Platform Equinix ecosystem of more than 10,000 customers.”
The announcements is the latest in a series of strategic and significant market entries for the company.
Following the acquisition of MainOne in April 2022, the firm announced two expansions into ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) following the recently announced plans to expand into Indonesia and Malaysia.
