Sub-Saharan Africa’s data centre roll-out is slowing materially and consolidation is intensifying, according to the latest African Interconnection Report from researcher Balancing Act, commissioned by Wiocc Group.

The number of planned carrier-neutral data centres tracked across the region has fallen from 38 in last year’s edition to 23 — a 39% decline. The number of existing facilities also dipped from 75 to 72, with a handful of smaller operators having merged or shut down. Country coverage has plateaued at 21, with six of those markets served by a single operator.

The findings put hard numbers behind the consolidation thesis Wiocc’s M&A chief Joshua Smythwood put to TechCentral in February when announcing OADC’s acquisition of seven NTT Data facilities.

Author Russell Southwood writes that the “heady optimism” about rolling out sub-2MW facilities in smaller countries has been tempered by the difficulty of finding customers in those markets. One operator’s roll-out plans for two countries are now more than two years old. Others have been delayed by government tardiness, national elections and a planning dispute.

The “blue water” between tier-one operators in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya and the sub-2MW players spread across smaller markets is widening. Demand in francophone countries has been slow with the exception of Côte d’Ivoire, with one operator quoted as saying “people are only taking one rack”. The hyperscaler “big bang” approach — a single hyperscaler opening a large availability zone in one go — appears not to apply on the continent, with edge and gateway deployments expanding rapidly instead.

Under pressure

Smaller players are under real pressure. Staff turnover has been high across operators large and small. Some operators have finance offers contingent on hitting sales milestones, with one telling Balancing Act there was “no reason to expand” and that it was sweating its existing assets. The Microsoft and G42 US$1-billion project announced for Kenya’s Rift Valley has been pushed back after site surveys identified seismic issues, and may eventually be relocated to Nairobi.

Consolidation is already in motion. Stanlib’s acquisition of Africa Data Centres from Cassava Technologies — part of Cassava’s broader recapitalisation — was approved in January. Helios has bought into Kenya’s iXAfrica and announced plans to take a majority stake in Telecom Egypt’s regional data hub. iXAfrica has also signed a strategic partnership with South Africa’s Digital Parks Africa.

Read: MTN lines up partners for African AI data centre play

Mobile operators are repositioning aggressively. MTN’s new Lagos data centre will offer 4.5MW in its first phase and 9MW at full capacity, with first-phase capital expenditure put at $120-million. The report says MTN-owned Genova will lease AI compute capacity to companies and governments — part of a push by the group confirmed in its 2025 full-year results to monetise digital infrastructure.

MTN’s wholesale arm, Bayobab, has recruited a senior staffer from iXAfrica to head its data centre operations. Airtel Nxtra is building two facilities — 38MW in Lagos and 44MW in Nairobi — aimed at hyperscalers and AI-ready workloads. In Kenya, Safaricom has entered a strategic partnership with iXAfrica, driven by the physical limitations of its 2.8MW Limuru site.

Hyperscalers and the finance sector remain the two solid growth drivers. Nigeria is “more likely in the mid-term”, the report finds, with one operator noting that some of the larger Nigerian builds were “not yet translating into orders”.

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