Congo has started construction of a new data center in partnership with the African Development Bank.
It is financed by African Development Bankthe futuristic building will soon be the nerve center for the storage and processing of the Republic of Congo’s digital data.
Details
By funding his project 66.55 million euros (€52.47 million from the African Development Bank and €14.50 million from the Congolese government) 600 km of fiber optic cable on the main interconnection routes with Cameroon (341 km) and the Central African Republic (281 km) ) across the Congo River will house and build the data center.
The three levels will have server rooms, monitoring and supervision rooms, and meeting and conference rooms, as well as spaces for the power and air conditioning equipment the center needs to function properly, which should be delivered by December 2024, according to Michael Ngakalaproject coordinator.
About 13.8 million euros of the total has been allocated to the construction and operation of the data center.
What they say
“As part of the Congo component of the Central Africa Fibre-Optic Backbone Project, we received funding from the African Development Bank to build a data center and are now constructing a three-story building that can be expanded to include a basement”, explained the coordinator, giving a tour of the various areas of the future Congo data center.
“All data generated in the Congo must be stored somewhere,” he continued. “Currently, this data is stored abroad, so we have Congolese domain names that often end in “.fr” or “.com”, while the Congolese domain name is “.cg”.
From now on, we will be able to host all public data in the data center, as well as that of telcos, banks, insurance companies and other private companies that want to host it here, including backups of any primary storage. that they use.
“This project will consolidate the country’s digital sovereignty, because we cannot claim to be sovereign when our data, even the most sensitive data, is stored outside our territory, in foreign countries, with real risks of misuse, breach or mass leaks”.
Samatar Omar Elmi, The Chief ICT Specialist at the African Development Bank and project manager for the Bank, shared his thoughts:The topic of data localization has gained momentum across Africa in recent years, especially when it comes to sensitive data. The availability of locally generated data will pave the way for a virtuous cycle of local value creation that will benefit the entire digital ecosystem (public, private, etc.) in our countries. These are the initial stages of a digital circular economy that will contribute to the low carbon development of our continent.”
In addition to enhancing digital literacy, this project will “contribute to improving the competitiveness of the Congolese economy in terms of factor costs, because communication is an important factor in economic development,” points out Sié Antoine-Marie Tioyé, Bank Country Economist in the Congo.
Because this matters
This is an important contribution to the development of Congo’s digital economy, and Ngakala sees the initiative as a way for his country to strengthen its digital security by taking control of its data. “It is easy to hack data when it is outside your territory – with this data center, it will be easier to control data processing and access in our country“, he swears.
Zoom out
Ngakala offers the example of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, which is in the process of implementing a digital identification project for the entire Congolese population. It will create an astronomical amount of data to be stored nationally rather than overseas.
Other Congolese partners in other sectors are positioned in complementary ways to enhance the impact of this project.
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