Inside Teraco’s new hyperscale data centre
Teraco has announced the completion of its JB4 Bredell Campus data centre in the East of Johannesburg. The facility is capable of servicing 50MW of critical IT power load.
According to the company, the latest 30MW expansion phase at the data centre resulted in JB4 becoming Africa’s largest standalone data centre.
The new phase comprises six data halls and includes numerous design enhancements. The new halls each support 5MW of allocated critical IT load — another first for Africa.
The data halls are fully liquid-to-liquid cooled, allowing clients to deploy high-density, air-cooled cloud deployments and direct-to-chip cooling for denser artificial intelligence (AI) workloads.
JB4 comprises an 80,000m2 building structure serviced by an 80MW utility power supply. The total facility comprises 14 data halls, totalling 17,000m2.
According to Teraco, the facility is built in line with global hyperscale requirements and international compliance standards.
“JB4 has been designed with sustainability at its core, incorporating a state-of-the-art closed-loop chilled water system that provides free air cooling,” says Teraco.
The facility also uses AI-enabled technology to configure hall cooling in real-time, based on IT load and load dispersion.
“This innovative design achieves industry-leading Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), significantly reducing energy consumption while using zero water during ongoing cooling,” says Teraco.
It highlighted that using zero water during cooling, thanks to the closed-loop system, is an important feature considering water scarcity and supply reliability.
“The JB4 expansion, built to stringent global hyperscale specifications, contributed significantly to the South African and sub-Saharan African data centre footprint,” said Teraco.
“This follows the recent completion of Teraco’s new hyperscale JB5 Isando facility, which adds another 30MW of critical IT power to Teraco’s Isando Campus in Ekurhuleni.”
Teraco CEO Jan Hnizdo said the company was well-positioned to continue on its growth trajectory, thanks to sustained demand from enterprises and hyperscale clients for hybrid cloud and cloud deployments.
“South Africa has become the technology and data centre hub for sub-Saharan Africa, acting as a springboard for cloud, AI, and content provision into Africa,” he said.
“Massive global investments in undersea cables, such as Equiano and 2Africa, further strengthen this position.”
He added that these investments will enable global cloud providers to service the South African market and the rest of the sub-Saharan African region.
“Teraco is dedicated to expanding its capacity across key hubs, ensuring our clients have the flexibility to scale and fully leverage digital transformation across the region,” says Hnizdo.
“We continue to make significant investments in ICT infrastructure and have established Africa’s largest data centre platform.”
Combined, Teraco’s growing data centre platform comprises 189MW of critical power load across the Isando, Bredell, Cape Town, and Durban campuses.
Below are photographs of Teraco’s completed JB4 data centre at its Bredell Campus in Ekurhuleni.
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