News sponsored by Drive Control Corporation with Dell Client Peripherals: 

Provider of hyperscale data centres, Vantage Data Centers has announced the beginning of construction of its new R15‐billion state‐of‐the‐art data centre campus. The first phase of the 80 MW campus is scheduled to come online in the third quarter of 2022 and will be based in Waterfall, Gauteng, according to the company.

Hyperscale data centres are large facilities that allow large tech companies, cloud providers and enterprises to increase their computing capability rapidly. This will be the company’s first one in South Africa and on the African continent. The carrier‐neutral Johannesburg campus will consist of three facilities across 12 hectares, with 60,000 square meters of data centre space once fully developed, making it the largest on the continent, the company notes.

“Johannesburg is the data centre hub for sub‐Saharan Africa due to its strategic location, IT ecosystem, fibre connectivity to the rest of Africa and the availability of renewable energy. We look forward to not only opening the doors of our first African facility to our customers but also to becoming part of the local community,” said Antoine Boniface, president, Vantage EMEA.

Attacq Limited (Attacq), JSE listed REIT and developer of Waterfall City and Waterfall Logistics Hub, is partnering with Vantage to develop a campus to meet the requirements of Vantage’s global campus blueprint.

The campus will emphasise sustainable construction practices such as offering renewable energy options, limiting carbon footprints, and maintaining energy‐efficient operations with an industry‐leading power usage effectiveness, the company believes.

It will also include permeable landscaping and natural on‐site drainage to protect precious resources. Vantage notes it will invest in recycling, motion‐sensor LED lighting and other elements for incremental energy and water savings throughout the campus, in addition to electric vehicle charging stations.

To help meet its energy needs, the campus will also feature a dedicated on‐site, high‐voltage substation.

The campus will be cooled using a highly efficient, closed‐loop chilled water system, notes Vantage. An integrated economiser capability will allow reduced compressor energy based on the outside ambient temperature so that when the weather is favourable, cooling becomes more sustainable and less resource intensive.