What will power the data centers?

CybAfriqué is a space for news and analysis on cyber, data, and information security on the African continent.

HIGHLIGHTS

What will power the data centers?

Africa is in a craze for data centers. There are currently about 88 facilities either planned or under construction, a substantial number given that the continent has approximately 110 active data centers. There are a lot of logistical problems that stand in the way of this; however, the most important is electricity.

Africa produces 100 GW in power, a fraction of the 250 GW it is estimated to need to support basic industrialization and universal access by 2030. Add the 238 MW of data center capacity currently under construction on top of that, which will consume an estimated 2.1 billion kWh annually. There are data centers in Lagos and Johannesburg running on diesel generators, which are neither environmentally nor logistically sustainable. Here lies the question: what will power the data centers?

It is a question Egypt tries to answer. Earlier this week, the Investment Minister, Mohamed Farid Saleh, met representatives of the Renergy Group alliance to discuss a $1 billion hyperscale green data center in the Sinai region . This project is designed to run on a massive 10 GW hybrid complex of solar panels, batteries, green hydrogen, and even pumped-storage hydroelectric plants. To solve the heat problem, the data center will be cooled using Red Sea seawater, bypassing the need for energy-intensive traditional AC.

Egypt is highly incentivized to attempt these projects. It is a country connecting Africa, the Middle East, and Europe; roughly 17% of the world’s submarine cables pass through Egyptian territory or the Suez Canal. But who will help the others? Tier III data centers in Africa typically consume from 3 MW to over 13.5 MW of power. Getting that kind of load from an official grid that is already prone to "load shedding" is near impossible.

Kenya is also taking a stab at it. The country is currently building a $1 billion "green" data center in the Olkaria geothermal fields to run Microsoft Azure's East Africa Cloud Region. Because Kenya is the world's 7th-largest producer of geothermal energy, this facility can theoretically scale from an initial 100 MW to 1 GW, operating entirely on the Earth's heat. 

FEATURES

• Benin: Kansou trial at the CRIET, a test for digital freedom of expression

HEADLINE

• Ghana’s Cyber Security Authority logs surge in cyber inquiries amid rising concerns in 2025

• 45,000 malicious IP addresses taken down in international cyber operation

• New $137M initiative to enable digital service access for millions in three ECOWAS nations

• Africa’s cloud race heats up as UniCloud expands into six markets with new CEO

• Côte d’Ivoire Leans on Starlink and U.S. backing to scale Its digital ambitions

• Kaspersky warns of data-stealing malware in Kenya

• Rwanda launches Digital Public Infrastructure strategy to power citizen services and AI

• Sudan launches national public key infrastructure to enhance digital trust and information sovereignty

• New Cybersecurity Initiative promises IT jobs across Uganda’s districts

• Chad uses the national biometric registry to boost govt systems interoperability

• DRC launches data protection officers network to strengthen digital governance

• Internet outage hits Congo-Brazzaville during presidential vote

• Senegal sees surge in cybercrime amid rapid digitisation

ACROSS THE WORLD

• Moscow seeks to limit internet to state-approved websites amid ongoing outages

• Russian hackers exploit Zimbra flaw to breach Ukrainian maritime agency

See you next week.