{"id":602964,"date":"2025-07-17T07:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T05:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=602964"},"modified":"2025-07-17T07:35:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T05:35:13","slug":"digital-parks-africa-partners-with-touchnet-and-zadara-to-bring-sovereign-ai-to-south-african-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/industrynews\/602964-digital-parks-africa-partners-with-touchnet-and-zadara-to-bring-sovereign-ai-to-south-african-businesses.html","title":{"rendered":"Digital Parks Africa partners with Touchnet and Zadara to bring Sovereign AI to South African businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Touchnet<\/strong><\/a>, in partnership with Zadara<\/strong><\/a>, has launched Sovereign AI Edge Cloud infrastructure at the Digital Parks Africa (DPA)<\/strong><\/a> data centre in Samrand, Centurion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking at the launch event, Touchnet CEO Charly Bahous said DPA was the perfect data centre partner alongside which to launch these services in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAI is key to Africa\u2019s digital future and Touchnet aims to lead the way. To do this we require energy, security and expertise,\u201d said Bahous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is where Digital Parks Africa \u2013 Africa\u2019s trusted colocation provider \u2013 stood out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTouchnet is in good hands, as we have over 34 years of combined intellectual property and data centre experience on a group level,\u201d said Wiaan Vermaak, Group Chief Commercial Officer at Digital Parks Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have learned what works, what doesn\u2019t, and how to provide data centre solutions most efficiently \u2013 leading to this momentous day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wiaan Vermaak, Group CCO at DPA<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Zadara AI Cloud solutions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Touchnet is a leading cloud solution provider and an expert in Zadara\u2019s world-class Sovereign AI Edge Cloud solutions \u2013 including their implementation throughout Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a privilege and an honour that we received Zadara\u2019s blessing to adapt its Sovereign AI Edge Cloud solutions to fit the South African and African markets,\u201d said Bahous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These Zadara solutions are already hugely popular on a global scale, with over 500 clouds and 250 partners across over 24 countries already operational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sovereign AI refers to AI solutions hosted locally, within sovereign country borders, to improve data security, lower latency and remove costs associated with data ingress & egress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This enables businesses to build and run their own Large Language Models and other AI tools without having to access them through public networks \u2013 mitigating the risk of data being exposed in the public domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional benefits of using Zadara\u2019s Sovereign AI offerings are that, through its partners like Touchnet, it offers a full-stack solution that encompasses hardware, support, installation, software, and much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zadara leverages the benefits of GPU-powered cloud servers, rather than standard servers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GPU servers deliver vastly increased compute power and are better-equipped to handle modern technologies like AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, standard compute is being supplemented significantly to process GPU-driven workloads \u2013 and Zadara through Touchnet are driving this change with world-class, GPU-server-powered Sovereign AI cloud solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zadara\u2019s global presence and cutting-edge technology are now set to redefine how African businesses harness AI. Behnam Eliyahu, APAC and SEMEA CTO at Zadara, presented a keynote during the launch event, where he reinforced the strategic intent behind this rollout:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt Zadara, we are proud to power a new era of digital transformation across Africa by deploying scalable, GPU-enabled cloud infrastructure in partnership with TouchNet. This launch at the DPA Data Centre in Samrand marks a critical step toward democratising access to high-performance compute resources, enabling African enterprises and startups alike to accelerate breakthroughs in AI, ML and data-intensive analytics.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“By bringing GPU-as-a-Service to the region, we’re equipping businesses with the tools to train complex AI models, render 3D workloads, and process massive datasets \u2013 on demand, with enterprise-grade security and performance. This is more than infrastructure \u2013 it\u2019s a platform for innovation, and a commitment to unlocking the continent\u2019s full digital potential.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partnership is key<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The success of these Sovereign AI services in South Africa is the coming together of three industry leaders \u2013 Zadara, Touchnet, and DPA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zadara has partnered with Touchnet to roll out its GPU-powered servers in Africa to meet the African market\u2019s unique demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Touchnet joined hands with a reliable, world-class data centre partner that can adapt and execute on its extensive resource requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DPA is the obvious choice thanks to its flexible business model, which makes it more adaptable and agile than its competitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a particularly important given the exponential increase in resource requirements of AI workloads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bahous said his long-term goal is to reach 1,000 GPU-powered servers running in the African market by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s imperative to have a data centre partner as flexible as DPA \u2013 and DPA is excited to be part of this project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here to learn more about Digital Parks Africa<\/strong><\/a>and click here to learn more about TouchNet<\/strong><\/a>. Or contact sales@touchnet.co.za<\/strong><\/a> for further information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Menno Parsons, Founder and Director at Digital Parks Africa, and Charly Bahous, CEO at Touchnet<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South African businesses can now enjoy the benefits of Sovereign AI \u2013 hosted in DPA\u2019s world-class Samrand facility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341030,"featured_media":602969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28937],"tags":[61244,47514],"class_list":["post-602964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industrynews","tag-dpa","tag-touchnet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602964"}],"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\/341030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602964"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":602971,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602964\/revisions\/602971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}