Safaricom Ethiopia receives land to construct $60 mln tier III data center
Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia PLC and Industrial Parks Development Corporation (IPDC) Ethiopia inked a deal for the transfer of developed land inside the IPDC-ICT Park through a sub-lease agreement on Thursday. The agreement will enable Safaricom to receive 10,000 square meters of land from the latter for the construction of state-of-the-art tier III data center with a cost of $60 million.
Safaricom Ethiopia will build a telecom cloud Data Center and related telecommunication infrastructures, which is expected to create 56 jobs.
The two institutions agreement sets the framework for broad areas of collaboration to enable accelerated digitalization through ICT solutions and facilitate Safaricom Ethiopia’s roll-out of network infrastructure in industrial parks throughout the country.
Sandokan Debebe, CEO of IPDC said that Safaricom Ethiopia’s investment in industrial parks would contribute to the ambitious digitalization goals set by the country’s Digital Strategy.
The establishment of the Data Center will help improve the availability of latest technologies mainly in the industrial parks to support the digitalization process, improving efficiency, transparency, and productivity, according to Safaricom Ethiopia.
Safaricom Ethiopia PLC has set a plan to roll out its pilot customer network across 25 cities.
Anwar Sousa, CEO of Safaricom Ethiopia PLC extended his gratitude for the backing from IPDC, and said the data center is among company’s planned projects in the period ahead.
He added: “Construction of the Data Center will have a significant role to upgrade the existing data center in the ICT Park and provide its services to institutions that needs the services.”
