Huge change in South Africa’s cloud plans

South Africa’s Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) has U-turned on plans for state-owned data centres in the country.

The government previously wanted to control its own data centre facilities.

However, it says the challenges of electricity supply, procuring technical skills, and costs associated with building and maintaining data centres could render them unsustainable.

This is according to the digital infrastructure clause in the DCDT’s National Policy on Data and Cloud, published by minister Mondli Gungubele on 31 May 2024.

It notes that South Africa is home to data centre investors and cloud providers with global reach and experience that provide affordable data storage and processing facilities.

While South Africa’s data centre industry is booming, the DCDT says the government has limited resources and must balance its finite financial resources.

“The prohibitive costs associated with building, running, and maintaining these facilities could render them unsustainable and impractical, potentially becoming white elephants in a few years,” it says.

In addition, the cost of installing alternative energy sources to prevent disruptions resulting from South Africa’s electricity supply challenges is high.

“Given that data centres operate 24 hours a day and consume vast amounts of electricity, reliance solely on the national grid may be insufficient,” the DCDT says.

It added that competing with established data centre players for technical skills would be challenging for a government with limited funding.

“The establishment and operation of data centres require specialized technical skills, which may not be widely available in South Africa at present,” it said.

“Even where such skills exist, the government must compete with the private sector, with its limited funding, to attract these skilled professionals.”

“Given these challenges, it may not be feasible for the government to own and manage data centres with its limited resource base,” the DCDT added.

The 2024 National Policy on Data and Cloud represents a complete about-face of the DCDT’s plans.

In April 2021, former minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams published a proposed National Data and Cloud Policy, which called for establishing a High-Performance Computing and Data Processing Centre (HPCDPC).

It proposed that the HPCDPC would consolidate existing publicly funded data centres.

“The HPCDPC will leverage the existing computing capacity and technical capabilities of the CSIR and SITA, and will operate in conformance with international best practice,” it said.

“The HPCDPC shall have access to the excess capacity of public funded data centres of entities such as Sentech and Broadband Infraco, Eskom and Transnet.”

The document outlined the HPCDPC’s roles, including providing cloud services for state entities, national departments, provinces, municipalities, metros, state-owned companies, universities, and research centres.

All government data would be stored in the facility.

The State Digital Infrastructure Company would provide connectivity and the interconnection of the HPCDPC with other public data centres.

“The HPCDPC shall be replicated with two similar centres to ensure the availability of backup and business continuity in instances where the main centre comes under cyberattack,” the policy added.