The groundbreaking ceremony for the $250 million hyperscale data centre being built by Nigeria’s Kasi Cloud Ltd took place within the week, to signal the beginning of construction on the company’s first of several planned data centre campuses in Nigeria.
Kasi is a first-of-its-kind mass-scale data centre and digital ecosystem platform company, bringing design and critical digital infrastructure services to Africa via Lagos, Nigeria.
The company designs, builds and operates hyperscale cloud data centres to support dynamic space, power, and connectivity at scale. For this purpose, Kasi has acquired approximately 4 hectares of land in the Maiyegun area of Lekki, Lagos, the fastest-growing deployment zone for commercial and upscale residential facilities in Nigeria.
“Kasi’s mission of building a digital platform to accelerate cloud and interconnect people, enterprises and governmental institutions in Nigeria and across Africa started here in Lagos, Nigeria,” said Kasi Co-Founder and CEO Johnson Agogbua.
Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Executive Governor of Lagos State was the Special Guest of Honor at the groundbreaking ceremony. As one of Nigeria’s leading advocates for digital connectivity growth, Kasi identifies with the governor’s vision for Lagos’ future infrastructure development.
“If Lagos is to sustain its Centre of Excellence status in the country, vital infrastructural development is critical to achieving human capital development. The economic impact that infrastructure improvement has on nation-building cannot be overemphasized,” Sanwo-Olu stated at the 2021 Lagos State Infrastructure, Maintenance and Regulatory Agency Stakeholders Conference.
In addition to Governor Sanwo-Olu, also in attendance were some of Kasi’s key investors, including the CEO of the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), Uche Orji.
“We congratulate Kasi on this momentous milestone. NSIA believes in the potential of digital infrastructure to serve as an enabler and accelerator for innovation,” Orji said when speaking on the project.
“We expect that the transformative impact of this infrastructure on the domestic tech space will reposition Nigeria. The Board and Management of the Authority is proud to be associated with this development.”
By looking to attract hyperscalers by solving the connectivity and scalability issues where others have been challenged, Kasi is on a mission to build the country’s leading sustainable interconnection and data centre platform for Africa, specifically designed to support digital ecosystems and drive internet access for over a billion people.
“Sub-Saharan Africa is the largest growth market in the world,” said Kasi Co-Founder and Director, Mark Adams. “When you look at where Big Tech is investing, a major piece of that growth is coming through Nigeria and Kasi infrastructure is a key piece in the puzzle.”
This $250-million campus in Lekki is designed to hyperscale requirements and standards and modelled similar to Silicon Valley technology parks. When fully developed, the campus will stand as one of the biggest of its kind in Africa.