Gbenga Adegbiji, the Chief Operating Officer at MDXi, MainOne’s data center subsidiary and West Africa’s leading data center company, has reavealed why MDXi built Nigeria’s most environmental friendly data center campus.
In this interview with Tech Point, Adegbiji spoke candidly about MDXi’s vast impact on Digital Infrastructure in West Africa, the nagging challenges and Lekki II Data Centre due for launch in 2022 among sundry issues.
Read excerpts below:
After the launch of Appolonia Data Centre in Accra in June this year, MDXi has announced its Lekki II Data Centre for launch in Q1 2022. What exactly is driving MainOne’s investment in Digital Infrastructure?
Digital transformation and the growth of the Digital economy is changing the world in many ways and will continue to transform the way we live and do business. There is still a huge digital infrastructure gap in many countries of Africa and MainOne’s vision is to bridge that gap through our investments across the West African region. Our Data Centre subsidiary, MDXi is expanding its footprint across the region as seen with the Appolonia Data Centre in Ghana and now Lekki Data Centre II. These investments will power the explosive growth in data consumption and digital services in the region. We want to ensure that enterprises have access to affordable Data Centre and Interconnection services at global standards to deliver services to end users across West Africa.
We know Lekki Data Centre 1 is a 600 racks facility; how big is Lekki Data Centre II going to be?
The Lekki II Data Centre is the new mega structure currently being developed within the campus of Lekki Data Centre I. The Lekki II DC is a 4MW infrastructure with a total of 572 rack spaces and will enjoy the same seamless connection to the national grid with guaranteed availability in excess of 94%, making both facilities the most environmental-friendly Data Centre Campus in Nigeria. The new facility will also be certified to the relevant global Data Centre and security standards.
Your facility is touted as the most environmental-friendly Data Centre in Nigeria today. How are you able to do this?
Data Centres generally consume a lot of power due to the volume of energy required to power and remove heat generated by IT infrastructure. This power must also be available on a 24hrs, 7-days basis no matter what. To achieve high availability of power in our environment, most data centres rely on diesel-fuelled generators to power operations which is not environmental-friendly because of carbon emissions and noise pollution. The MDXi Lekki campus is strategically located close a sub-station on the national grid and the company invested in building a direct and dedicated 33KV line to connect the grid. This initiative cut our carbon emissions by 95%, which is why the facility is attractive to organisations looking to reduce carbon footprint and embrace a more environmentally friendly infrastructure space.