As the digital economy is all about data, Africa will need to develop its own data centre network to ensure data sovereignty, bandwidth and latency time, and bring back the IT load across the continent.

Schneider Electric has committed to help its customers and partners make a successful digital transformation in energy management and automation.

As the data centre industry is one of the pillars of the African economic development, Schneider Electric, together with several global and regional data centre industry leaders, has formed the ADCA (Africa Data Centre Association), a non-profit, pan-African professional association that will foster the development of the Industry in Africa and create a strong Industry body on the continent, and internationally.

There is a huge growth in demand for energy and connectivity – in the Middle East and Africa alone, it will double by 2040 – 10 years faster than the rest of the world. The smartphone penetration, the digital services explosion, together with data sovereignty law, bandwidth and latency times, are triggering a bright future for the data centre and co-location business in Africa.

The ADCA, in the presence of its founding members – Groupement Orange Services, ITA, NSIA Technologies, MTN, PAIX Data Centres, Rack Centre, Poulina DataXion and Schneider Electric – will officially be launched at the Datacloud Africa Leadership Summit that will take place in Marrakech on 28 September 2018.

The new trade association will be funded by membership subscription and by the African Development Bank sponsorship. It will address the entire data center market segment.

The association goals include, but are not limited to:

* Create a professional and sustainable regional association which provides a collective voice for the Industry with respect to regulation and policy issues that may affect it, or could boost it.

* Provide a platform for members to contribute to the establishment of best practices, education, industry leadership and technical standards to which data centre industry adheres.

* Promote a colocation industry and mindset in Africa.

* Offer guidance to support the development of the data centres and the digital economy.

* Provide an African voice in the forward development of data centres internationally.

* Organise structured interactions with African governments on regulation and policies.

“Africa data centres confront a series of challenges not least in deploying and powering new facilities,” says Paul-François Cattier, vice-president: economic development for Middle East and Africa at Schneider Electric. “The new association to be launched during Datacloud Africa Leadership Summit will provide the first non-profit organizational body for African operators, a valuable resource supporting industry best practices, an outstanding networking platform for the exchange of information and ideas.”