Actis-majority-owned data centre, Rack Centre, has gone up the charts. It is the very first International Finance Corporation (IFC) EDGE-certified data centre in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).
This is in addition to its already attained status. Rack Centre also holds the record as West Africa’s first and leading carrier-neutral Tier III data centre.
EDGE, on the other hand, is an innovation of IFC and a member of the World Bank Group. It makes designing and certifying resource-efficient and zero-carbon (green) buildings easy. With its app, you can determine the resource-efficient ways to build zero-carbon buildings.
In addition, EDGE aids with relevant strategies to achieve energy-saving, water-saving, and embodied energy materials. Also, it can help position your company at the forefront of change.
Why Rack Centre is Unique
On its website, Rack Centre has a bold description. This description reads; “Rack Centre is the first and only truly carrier-neutral state-of-the-art Tier III Constructed Facility Certified Data Centre in Africa offering colocating content distribution, interconnect and cloud services”.
It was founded in 2012 and had its first partnership with Actis in the early part of 2020. This was part of its African Data Centre Platform Investment of $250 million.
According to Rack Centre, this certification shows a recognition of the amount of savings that the centre will achieve in energy and water use.
This is also part of the plan to expand its IT load from 1.5MW to 13MW. It is also forecast to achieve up to 35% more energy savings that will help avoid carbon emissions of up to 100 tonnes every year.
Founding Executive and Chief Operating Officer of Rack Centre, Ezikiel Egboye also commented on the milestone.
He said, “We are delighted to be the first to be certified in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, which is really a continuation of Rack Centre’s firsts in Africa, as it was also the first data centre to be Tier III Constructed Facility Certified”.
Furthermore, he also said: “Rack Centre has a track record of setting the standard for power usage efficiency in the region”. Sustainability is at the core of what we do, a quest that permeates through all our actions”.
Rounding Off
The CEOs of both Actis- Convergence Partners (Mr Jasper Lankhorst) and the Director of Climate Business Department of the IFC (Mr Vivek Pathak) also spoke about how proud they were of this achievement by Rack Centre.
According to Mr Jasper Lankhorst, Rack Centre being the first data centre to receive such certification “has made us really proud”. Mr Vivek encouraged other data centres to follow this path.
Nigerian companies all around the globe are indeed setting and breaking records, and also creating systems around the continent. A Nigerian company, Healthtracka raises $1.5 million to expand medical diagnostics in Africa. Undoubtedly, Africans can now get diagnoses of their ailments from the comfort of their homes. Results are also made available within 48 hours, via the platform.
