As the role of digital infrastructure becomes increasingly important in supporting South Africa’s economic growth, data centres have become critical in shaping this landscape, serving customers in multiple industries such as financial services, construction, manufacturing and logistics.
In addition to this, data centres also enable digital services such as e-commerce and online banking, thereby becoming fundamental to daily operations, Nasdaq-listed digital infrastructure company Equinix South Africa MD Sandile Dube said during a media event on August 11.
As Johannesburg continues to grow in terms of interconnectivity, Dube emphasised the importance of leveraging digital infrastructure to encourage more foreign investments and to enable greater accessibility and digital inclusion.
“In a country like South Africa, there's this debate about the lack of digital infrastructure; there’s this debate about a good number of people that do not have access to digital infrastructure and therefore there's this digital divide that exists in our country. Data centres, together with connectivity, play quite a critical role in bridging the digital divide.
“As we know now today, where so much of our lives depends on digital infrastructure, data centres are at the heart of enabling the services that we that we enjoy today,” he said.
