African cloud and colo provider Paix Data Centres has announced the construction of a data center in Dakar, Senegal.
Located in Les Mamelles, the new facility will provide essential digital infrastructure to support innovation and economic growth in West Africa.
The facility will offer 1.2MW of critical power across 918 sqm (9,880 sq ft) of white space when operational in 2026.
The company added it would aim to optimize the use of local resources, operating at the most efficient temperatures and saving cooling water consumption in water-stressed regions.
By 2030, the operator has pledged to use 100 percent renewable energy during the construction of its data centers.
Construction is planned to create almost 200 jobs, whilst around 20 employees will be hired full-time to operate the Dakar facility.
“Paix Data Centres’ investment in the Paix Dakar data center positions it at the crossroads of connectivity between West Africa, Europe, and South America. The strong network hub created by the aggregation of multiple submarine cable landing points connecting to terrestrial cables makes Dakar a very attractive gateway,” said Wouter van Hulten, CEO of Paix Data Centres.
Currently, four submarine cables land in Dakar - ACE, MainOne, Sat3, and SHARE. 2Africa is set to join in the coming months.
Paix owns and operates three data centers; the first in Accra, Ghana, acquired in 2018; and the second in Nairobi, Kenya, opened in 2020. Its Accra facility was upgraded to 1.2MW of IT capacity in May last year.
In the same month, the operator announced a joint venture with the Djibouti Sovereign Fund to construct a 5MW data center, scheduled to open in 2026.
Africa50, an infrastructure investor and asset manager, invested $20 million in Paix in 2022 to support the company’s expansion into new markets.
Senegal does not have a large data center market, with all its data centers being located in Dakar. Currently, the capital is home to Onix, Sonatel, Diamniadio, and Free au Senegal, according to Datacenter Map.
The Onix data center is the landing station for the 2Africa cable.
