R3.77-billion for fibre and data centre expansion in Africa

Telecommunications company Liquid Intelligent Technologies has partnered with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to expand its data centre capacity and increase fibre cable rollouts in Africa.

The partnership has seen Liquid’s subsidiary Africa Data Centres get IFC equity and debt investments to the tune of approximately $250 million (R3.77 billion) to support its hyperscale data centre capacity in Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.

This money will also support the ongoing rollout of Liquid’s fibre broadband network, which currently stretches more than 100,000 kilometres across sub-Saharan Africa.

The IFC said the continued build-out of Liquid’s network would help to connect businesses and individuals to the Internet across the continent and position Liquid to be at the forefront of Africa’s digital transformation with the provision of complementary digital services.

“As Africa’s population grows and is increasingly urbanised, data consumption is expected to grow strongly and with this comes the need for secure local data hosting,” said the IFC.

Liquid Intelligent Technologies executive chairman and founder, Strive Masiyiwa, said the company was pleased with the IFC’s continued support.

“The investments in our data centres and fibre broadband network will directly support our growth plans over the coming years by encouraging the adoption of new services such as cloud and other digital services, services that are critical in driving sustainable development across Africa,” said Masiyiwa.

The IFC’s latest investment follows its Liquid bond issuance on Euronext Dublin, Ireland’s main stock exchange, through which the IFC raised $620 million (R9.33 billion) for the company.

According to the Broadband Commission on Sustainable Development, sub-Saharan Africa will need around $100 billion (R1.5 trillion) in investment to achieve universal, affordable, and high-quality broadband access by 2030.

It will also need at least 250,000km of new fibre.

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