South Africa's growing data centre landscape

Cape Town’s planning tribunal earlier this month gave the first green light to two enormous data centres near the airport, in King Air Industria – a combined 120 000 m² (about 14 rugby fields), built by US giant Equinix. Together they would draw around 174 MW of power, enough for roughly 130 000 homes, and by one estimate could use up to 4.4-billion litres of water a year for cooling. Objectors argued the application barely detailed its water and electricity needs, a gap they called “insulting” in a city that lived through Day Zero. The tribunal approved it anyway, treating it as a technical zoning matter.

Raccontata daengineeringnews.co.za