Construction of US $9m state of the art data centre in Botswana has begun. According to the Minister of Transport and Communications, Mr Thulagano Segokgo, this particular project will place Botswana as a strategic high ranking business partner across SADC and globally.
“This project being undertaken by Botswana Fibre Networks (BoFiNet), will be built inside the Science and Technology Park. The facility will set Botswana on a path to high connectivity and economic growth,” he said during the ground breaking ceremony for the facility.
The minister further added that the centre would accelerate the country into the digital economy, as it would offer local businesses a chance to take advantage of safe and secure cloud computing services as well as e-health, e-learning and other ICT related services.
“Apart from being a vendor neutral national network centric, peering point tier 3+ data centre, the facility, will become the strategic heart of Botswana’s networks capable of driving the country’s digital transformation and Smart Bots initiatives to attract and host major regional and international ICT players such as Microsoft, and Google,” he said.
The minister also revealed that construction and operation phases of the project was envisaged to create at least 273 jobs with the anticipated creation of more as it became operational and more services such as cloud services and Internet of Things (IoT) Software were introduced. “As many users rely on fast and reliable infrastructure every day, they will benefit from the faster and more reliable access to the information hub,” he added.
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Key breakthrough in telecommunications infrastructure development
Minister Segokgo described the project as a key breakthrough in telecommunications infrastructure development, adding that the centre would be energy efficient and environmentally friendly with business hosting agility, employing intelligent cooling, dual power feeds, 24-hour security and managed by skilled and capable industry experts.
Meanwhile, Bofinet chief executive officer Mr Mabua Mabua said the data centre project was the product of a feasibility study undertaken in 2014 after noticing the absence of critical infrastructure adequate to support the ICT ecosystem and the economy at large. The study reaffirmed the need for an open access data centre which would facilitate the ICT ecosystem and the economy at large.
Construction of the facility is expected to take eight months.
