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Wednesday, 15 February 2023

We could host Africa’s largest data center complex

El Sewedy Capital’s subsidiary, El Sewedy Data Centers, and Emirati firm Gulf Data Hub plan to invest USD 2.1 bn to build three data center complexes here, according to a company statement (pdf). The firms signed an MoU on the sidelines of the World Government Summit in Dubai to build the three complexes, which together would form the African continent’s largest data hub, Emirati state news agency WAM reports.

The details so far: The project will be built out in three phases over 5-7 years, with each of the three data center complexes comprising four separate data centers.

Regional links: The data center complexes would be linked to other Gulf Data Hub centers across the GCC, pushing forward the Madbouly government’s ambition to become a regional data hub.

Want to know more about Egypt’s data center landscape (and what a data center even means)? We covered the topic in detail in a three-part series of Hardhat, our infrastructure vertical. Read part one to get a lay of the land, then read part two for a better understanding of what’s impeding our data center growth, and finish off with part three, which lays out the drivers of growth.

AMENDED ON 15 FEBRUARY-

The company that signed the MoU with Gulf Data Hub was El Sewedy Data Centers – a subsidiary of El Sewedy Capital – not El Sewedy Electric as a previous version of this story had said. 

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