Paul-Francois Cattier of the Africa Data Center Association describes Africa as the “world’s first digital-native continent,” citing that more than half of its 1.3 billion inhabitants were born after the year 2000. This statistic underscores the need for Africa’s digital infrastructure to evolve so that its young population can communicate, collaborate and do business more easily and cost-effectively.

Carrier-neutral data centers are the backbone of this transformation. Facilities such as Rack Centre in Lagos, Teraco in Johannesburg and Open Access Data Centres (OADC) in Nigeria, South Africa and the DRC are fostering open interconnection environments where networks, content providers and cloud platforms can meet. Backed by major players including Digital Realty, Equinix, Africa Data Centres and MTN, these ecosystems are expanding rapidly to provide the neutral, interconnected hubs needed to power Africa’s growing digital economy.

But as these facilities scale up, a bottleneck has emerged: data center interconnect (DCI).

Why DCI demand is surging

Fintech is driving a wave of connectivity investment, from digital banking to lending platforms. Cloud adoption is climbing as enterprises move workloads closer to users, and AI applications are putting extra pressure on already-stretched networks. To keep up, data center hubs need secure, high-capacity transmission systems. Yet lacking sufficient local infrastructure, traffic often gets routed through Europe, adding latency and cost.

Structural issues slowing DCI deployment

• Power: Many utility grids are fragile with outages common, so DCI platforms must be power-efficient and resilient to disturbances.
• Fragmentation: Africa still lacks sufficient Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) and co-located hubs.
• Skills: The transmission engineering talent pool is thin, stalling multicountry deployments.
• Mobility: Restrictive visa regimes make cross-border deployments harder.

The friction these and other issues introduce has made investment more complex and slowed rollout in some regions.

Designed for openness, efficiency and growth, our DCI solutions deliver the capacity and security Africa’s rapidly growing digital economy demands.

Africa’s data center boom is driven by the same forces accelerating digital transformation globally, but with added urgency from a region that needs to catch up fast. Success depends on infrastructure that’s energy-efficient, reliable and built for conditions on the ground. We recently partnered with NEC XON to help address the technical and practical challenges of African DCI deployment.

Our open, energy-efficient data center interconnect technology is built for high-density workloads, low latency and hybrid cloud architectures. It also enables tailored deployments that address diverse network conditions and growth scenarios typical in African markets.

Key solutions and benefits

• Our FSP 3000 platform has an open architecture that enables interoperability and scalable growth.
• Our 400ZR/OpenZR+ technology provides energy-efficient metro optics for IP-over-DWDM connectivity.
• Our TeraFlex™ solution offers high-capacity inter-metro transport that maximizes existing fiber assets.

These platforms are complemented by automation and low-touch provisioning, which simplify operations and lower costs, along with Layer 1 encryption featuring post-quantum readiness to safeguard sovereign compute and data integrity. 

NEC XON’s on-the-ground capability to design, deploy and maintain systems across Africa plays an equally crucial role. Customers get secure, sovereign interconnects optimized for energy efficiency and all backed by a partner with a proven regional footprint. This helps operators and data center providers overcome grid fragility, fragmented interconnection and skills shortages to scale faster and more reliably. Together, we’re delivering the DCI infrastructure needed to unlock Africa’s next wave of digital growth.

Learn more about how our open optical networking solutions power DCI worldwide at adtran.com.