{"id":594148,"date":"2025-05-12T13:59:33","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T11:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=594148"},"modified":"2025-05-12T14:00:21","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T12:00:21","slug":"biggest-data-centres-in-south-africa-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cloud-hosting\/594148-biggest-data-centres-in-south-africa-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Biggest data centres in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa’s largest data centre is Teraco’s Isando campus in Johannesburg, which provides roughly 32,000m2<\/sup> of hosting space and can support 70MW of critical IT load.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data centre capacity has expanded rapidly in South Africa as local Internet access has grown, increasing the space needed for content and services hosted closer to users in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa also acts as a gateway to the Internet for many other Southern African countries where telecoms infrastructure and financial feasibility may not support such facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s five biggest data centres have a combined 230MW of critical IT load support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To put that into perspective, they would require roughly 100,000 six-panel home solar power systems running at peak production to operate at full load.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Founded in 2008, Teraco is South Africa’s largest data centre company by hosting space and capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US firm Digital Realty acquired a 55% stake in the company for $3.5 billion 2022. That means that Teraco had a valuation of roughly R57 billion two years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teraco’s first and biggest campus \u2014 Isando in Kempton Park \u2014 consists of three facilities \u2014 JB1, JB3, and JB5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trio host more than 285 network service providers, 160 IT services providers, 160 enterprises and financial services providers, and 50 content providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campus also serves as the on-ramp to all major global cloud services \u2014 including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Huawei Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JB1 East was the first section of the data centre, launching with around 1,250m2<\/sup> of space in January 2010. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The substantial growth in demand for carrier-neutral colocation boosted Teraco, which began its als runs South Africa’s largest Internet exchange point \u2014 NAPAfrica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teraco announced a further 40MW critical load and 12,000m2<\/sup> hosting space expansion to its Isando Campus \u2014 JB7 \u2014 in November 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facility is scheduled for completion by 2026 and is being funded with an R8-billion syndicated loan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will take the Isando Campus’s total critical load to 110MW and increase its hosting space to 44,000m2<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four more giants<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Render of the envisioned JB7 facility at<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Teraco also operates the second and third largest data centres in South Africa \u2014 the 64MW Bredell Campus in Kempton Park and 50MW Brackenfell Campus in Cape Town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest South African data centre operated by a company other than Teraco is Africa Data Centres’ JHB1 campus, with 20MW critical IT workload capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campus is situated in Midrand and features 8,500m2<\/sup> of floor space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vantage Data Centers’ Johannesburg I Campus in Waterfall City, Gauteng, is the fifth largest by critical IT load but fourth-biggest by space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its first facility \u2014 JNB1 \u2014 was completed in 2022 and has a 16MW critical load across 12,000m2<\/sup>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan is to expand the campus with another two facilities, each with another 32MW load and 24,000m2<\/sup> space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first of these \u2014 JNB2 \u2014 was initially slated for completion by 2024 but does not appear to be fully online yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once this facility and an envisioned JNB3 site are operational, Johannesburg I will have a combined IT workload capacity of 80MW spread over 60,000m2<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below is a summary of the key specifications of the five biggest data centres in South Africa by critical IT load. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

1. Isando Campus \u2014 Teraco<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • Location:<\/strong> Kempton Park, Gauteng<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Whitespace: <\/strong> 32,000m2<\/sup> (+12,000m2<\/sup> planned)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Supported IT load: <\/strong>70MW (+40MW planned)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    \n\n\n\n

    2. Bredell Campus \u2014 Teraco <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
      \n
    • Location:<\/strong> Kempton Park, Gauteng<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Whitespace: <\/strong>21,000m2<\/sup><\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Supported IT load: <\/strong>64MW<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      \n\n\n\n

      3. Brackenfell Campus \u2014 Teraco <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
        \n
      • Location:<\/strong> Brackenfell, Cape Town<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Whitespace: <\/strong>18,000m2<\/sup><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Supported IT load: <\/strong>50MW<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
        \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
        \n\n\n\n

        4. JHB1 \u2014 Africa Data Centres<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
          \n
        • Location:<\/strong> Midrand, Gauteng<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • Whitespace: <\/strong>8,500m2<\/sup><\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • Supported IT load: <\/strong>20MW <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
          \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
          \n\n\n\n

          5. Johannesburg I \u2014 Vantage Data Centres<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
            \n
          • Location:<\/strong> Waterfall City, Gauteng<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • Whitespace: <\/strong>12,000m2<\/sup> (+48,000m2<\/sup> planned)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • Supported IT load: <\/strong>16MW (+64MW planned)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
            \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
            \n\n\n\n

            <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            South Africa’s top five data centres have a combined critical IT load of 230MW, more power than some of Eskom’s older power station units can deliver. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":594162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[48635,441,99838,99083,99084,77678],"class_list":["post-594148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cloud-hosting","tag-africa-data-centres","tag-teraco","tag-teraco-brackenfell-campus","tag-teraco-bredell-campus","tag-teraco-isando-campus","tag-vantage-data-centres"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594148"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":594365,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594148\/revisions\/594365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}