Schneider Electric has teamed up with Nairobi-based IXAfrica Data Centres to establish East Africa's first and largest hyper cloud data centre.

According to a statement released today, the power train for the new Tier 3+ facility is based around Schneider Electric MV and LV switchgear to offer stable and reliable cloud services renewably powered Kenya's grid.

Schneider Electric said the new development, known as 'NBOX1', is now open and operational as a carrier-neutral, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-ready data centre – “the largest and most technologically advanced digital habitat for cloud, colocation, and connectivity in East Africa”.

The company said the facility is intended to attract hyperscale and internet customers to “the region's largest data centre, providing a customer and user experience equal to facilities in North America and Western Europe”.

According to the statement, the launch of NBOX1 is supported by Schneider Electric's  EcoStruxure for Data Centres architecture and solutions, which provides the new data centre with resilience, uptime and cost efficiency, enhanced security, and the ability to meet IXAfrica's sustainability objectives.

IXAfrica's new data centre, backed by a $50 million capital investment from investment firm Helios, is positioned in Africa's growing technology epicentre, the so-called 'Digital Savannah', which serves a population of over 300 million and supports an innovation ecosystem that includes a skilled workforce, cloud and content providers, as well as colocation and connectivity services.

"Kenya," said Snehar Shah, CEO of IXAfrica, "is a hypercloud-ready region with advanced cloud adoption propensities, a digitally savvy environment, access to diverse internet fiber connectivity, high availability, and low-carbon power sources. All of this takes place in a country with a stable regulatory and political climate, as well as a strong economy expected to grow by 5.2% in 2024.”

According to Ifeanyi Odoh, Schneider Electric country president in East Africa, “The solutions provided by Schneider Electric are engineered to support N+1 redundancy with four independent power trains, meeting IXAfrica’s immediate and long-term objectives, including design 1.25 PUE across the campus, as well as a 99.999% uptime guarantee”.

Mouna Essa Egh, secure power vice president for Middle East & Africa also highlighted Schneider Electric’s commitment to pioneering sustainable solutions for data centres, saying:“We believe that sustainable practices are essential for the future of data centres, and we are proud to partner with organizations like IXAfrica to create environmentally conscious and innovative digital habitats for the evolving technological landscape."

Shah added: “We have a very strategic relationship with Schneider Electric – in fact, our new Nairobi campus site is built on land formerly part of Schneider’s complex, and the power engineering for the site was designed by Schneider’s local partners. NBOX1 is sustainable by design, and our goal is to ‘Keep it Africa’ - our switchgear and panelware were all manufactured by Schneider Electric on our own doorstep.”