Teraco has announced the start of construction on a new hyperscale data centre with 40 megawatts (MW) of critical power load at its Isando Campus in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg. The data centre, funded by a new R8 billion syndicated loan, will further consolidate Teraco’s position as a leading provider of data centre services in Africa.
JB7 will include eight 1 500 m2 data halls, expanding capacity at Teraco’s Isando Campus by 40 MW.
The facility, JB7, is scheduled for completion in 2026 and will incorporate the latest design to support environmentally sustainable cooling and water management. The new data centre responds to growing demand from enterprises and cloud service providers for more data centre capacity. JB7 will offer highly resilient and secure colocation facilities, in line with Teraco’s long-term vision of enabling digital transformation across Africa. The expansion will increase capacity at the Isando Campus to 110 MW of critical power load.
Jan Hnizdo, CEO at Teraco, says enterprise and hyperscale deployments continue due to growing hybrid cloud requirements and the adoption of cloud services in Africa.
“South Africa is a springboard for cloud provision into Africa and, as a result, has become the technology and data centre hub for sub-Saharan Africa. Major global investments into undersea cables, like Equiano and 2Africa, further strengthen this position and enable global cloud providers to service the South African market as well as the larger sub-Saharan African region.
“Teraco is focused on growing its capacity across its core hubs. We ensure our clients have the flexibility to scale and take advantage of the digital transformation across sub-Saharan Africa. We continue to invest significantly in the region’s ICT infrastructure and have built Africa’s largest data centre platform. We take pride in enabling open access interconnection and providing world-class data centre infrastructure for all our clients,” Hnidzo says.
The JB7 facility, located in Ekurhuleni’s ‘aerotropolis’, is Teraco’s ninth data centre development and expands its Isando Campus. Here, Teraco’s data centres provide enterprises with direct access to Platform Teraco, a rich ecosystem of over 250 network providers, content delivery networks, global cloud on-ramps, subsea cable systems, access to over 100 managed service providers, and direct peering at regional IXPs, including NAPAfrica, Africa’s largest internet exchange point.
Hnizdo says the JB7 expansion aims to further support sub-Saharan enterprises in advancing their digital transformation strategies and enabling global cloud providers to expand their footprints, spurring innovation.
As the latest expansion for Teraco’s growing data centre platform, JB7 increases critical power load capacity at Teraco facilities to 228 MW. This includes the Isando Campus JB1/JB3/JB5/JB7 (110 MW), Bredell Campus JB2/JB4 (63 MW), Cape Town Campus CT1/CT2 (53 MW), and Durban (2 MW).
Teraco secured the R8 billion syndicated loan through Absa and other financial institutions to finance JB7 and other construction projects as it expands its key interconnection hubs. Part of this loan will supplement existing loans used to finance Teraco’s renewable energy generation programme, which is aligned with its long-term environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives. This includes a 120 MW utility-scale solar PV generation plant that will feed into the Eskom network and wheel power across multiple municipal grids.
Samuel Erwin, Chief Financial Officer at Teraco says, “We continue to receive strong support from the lending community. The new syndication was well oversubscribed, which is an expression of confidence by our local institutional financing partners in our data centre platform, growth path and ESG initiatives.
“Teraco remains dedicated to protecting, connecting, and growing the enterprises and ecosystems shaping Africa’s digital future sustainably and responsibly. Recent developments in generative AI have placed a spotlight on global energy supply constraints and triggered a new wave of investment into electricity generation. We have a unique opportunity in South Africa to integrate renewable energy generation into the provision of data centre infrastructure to serve the needs of our clients and support continued, sustainable digital advances in the region,” Erwin adds.
For more information visit: www.teraco.co.za
