Starlink-powered off-grid data centres coming to South African mines

JSE-listed South African technology company 4Sight Holdings has partnered with US edge connectivity provider Armada to roll out edge data centres at remote mining sites in Africa.
Armada is a San Francisco-headquartered venture that has received tens of millions of dollars in funding from significant investors, including Microsoft and Founder’s Fund, an early SpaceX investor.
Its primary product is the Galleon, a deployable and modular data centre running on-premise Microsoft Azure in ruggedised containers.
Galleons come in 3-rack, 6-meter or 6-rack, 12-meter configurations and are purpose-built for processing data on-site at remote mines, agricultural sites, oil rigs, and industrial facilities.
Armada’s Commander software is built into the mobile data centre, providing an artificial intelligence-powered assistant to monitor and manage the Galleon’s cooling, power, computing, networking, and storage.
The system also supports access to advanced third-party industry-specific applications, as well as Armada’s premium AI apps.
To facilitate high-bandwidth and low-latency data transfers, the Galleon can be fitted with dishes and associated equipment from satellite Internet service Starlink.
Armada senior vice president for international sales, Nordine Aamchoune, said this full-stack offering could redefine the way industries operated at the edge.
“By connecting Armada Galleon data centres to Starlink’s satellite internet network, mine operators can
leverage the full capabilities of Microsoft Azure’s cloud services, even in the most remote or challenging
environments on the continent, which opens up exciting new possibilities for the industry,” said Aamchoune.
According to 4Sight Holdings chief operations technology officer Wilhelm Swart, the Galleon reduced the costs and complexities associated with rolling out fixed-line connectivity to a remote site and transferring large volumes of data to centralised data centres for processing.
4Sight said that Armada’s Galleons processed data and ran AI processes locally and then submitted only the most important metadata back to the cloud via Starlink.
“As processing now happens at the edge, it takes milliseconds for mine operators to gain real-time insights into their operating environment,” Swart said.
“[That] enables the shift towards autonomous and intelligent mining processes, and the use of AI co-pilots to drive excellence and efficiencies, and enhance safety and productivity.”

No concerns about Starlink approval
MyBroadband asked 4Sight CEO Tertius Zitzke how the company was approaching the issue of Starlink’s pending approval in South Africa, as the Armada product will also be offered locally.
Zitzke shrugged off concerns and expressed confidence that ongoing negotiations to enable the service to launch in South Africa would be successful. “It will come,” he told MyBroadband.
It was recently revealed that a subsidiary of Anglo American tested Starlink in South Africa, thanks to a limited Radio Equipment Type Approval from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).
The subsidiary — Anglo Corporate Services South Africa (ACSSA) — said that the tests yielded positive results.
“We see satellite services like Starlink as an incredible opportunity to provide access to Internet connectivity to remote areas which currently either have unreliable access or no access at all,” said ACSSA.
Starlink’s roaming feature has also been used by many businesses in remote areas across South Africa, although Icasa deems this to be illegal.
Many of these customers have called the service a “game-changer” for their connectivity needs.
Zitzke said the major differentiator that Armada would bring to the mining industry was its true hybrid cloud capability.
4Sight is a Microsoft Solution Partner and has a proven track record in deploying mine digitalisation solutions in Africa.
“We are confident the partnership will help us solve the most pressing challenges faced by mining companies in Africa, empowering them to succeed in ways never before possible,” Zitzke said.
Another benefit of the solution is that it addressed data sovereignty issues that companies face when transferring data to a hosted environment.
4Sight and Armada are showcasing the technology at the 2025 Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape Town.
While South African pricing remains to be confirmed, Data Center Dynamics previously reported the Galleons would be priced from $450,000 (R8.5 million) for a year, which includes access to the Commander Connect monitoring and management system and Armada’s OpsAI offering.