Medallion Data Centres Limited (formerly Medallion Communications Limited) has announced its investment into the country to boost Nigeria’s quest for a fully digital economy in the near future.
“The entrance of Digital Realty into Nigeria is truly significant as it ensures that the plan by the Federal Government of Nigeria to create a fully digital economy will be actualized,” he said in a statement today in Lagos following the announcement by Digital Reality,” Ikechukwu Nnamani, CEO Medallion Data Centres Limited, said.
Medallion builds technologically advanced and secure interconnect switching centers to enable the exchange of telecom traffic among the different operators in the market.
According to Nnamani, for Nigeria to transition to a fully digital economy, it will need next-generation telecom infrastructure of which data centers are a critical part.
“None of the global digital content and cloud service providers has their storage or compute nodes in Nigeria or any of the West African countries. To attract global players in the telecom and ICT space to Nigeria, we must have world-class data centers operating at hyperscale level,” Nnamani said.
This prompted Medallion to structure investment with Digital Realty, largest global provider of cloud- and carrier-neutral data centers, colocation (the practice of housing privately-owned servers and networking equipment), and interconnection solutions.
Digital Realty supports the world’s enterprises and service providers by delivering the full spectrum of data centre, colocation and interconnection solutions.
Digital Reality, the company’s global data centre platform, provides customers a trusted foundation and proven Pervasive Data Center Architecture solution methodology for scaling digital business and efficiently managing data gravity challenges.
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Digital Realty’s global data centre footprint gives customers access to the connected communities that matter to them with 291 facilities in 47 cities across 24 countries on six continents.
Digital Realty currently maintains over 167,000 cross-connects and a client base of over 4,000 customers.
Apart from upgrading the Medallion existing data centers to global standards, new world-class data centers will be built in the West African sub-region leading to job creation, rapid acceleration of the digital economy, and much needed foreign direct investment into the sub-region.
This system will support customers in Nigeria and the continent as they navigate digital transformation strategies and the complexities of rapidly growing demand, the need for global coverage, and additional capacity.
Digital Reality had earlier this week announced the investment of $500million into the African datacenter ecosystem with a huge part of the investment going into the Nigerian market.
The investment is through a joint venture with the Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Fund. Also, as part of the transaction, the joint venture is also acquiring a land parcel adjacent to the hitherto Medallion Lagos data centre to provide near-term expansion capacity with Medallion’s management team.
“Starting with Medallion Data Centres in Nigeria, Digital Realty aims to be a core enabler of African economy through major investment in the continent’s internet infrastructure, that serves over one billion people who do not yet have proper access to the benefits of internet,” William Stein, Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty, said.
Stein explained that over the next decade, there will be huge opportunities for global businesses to tap into with predictions that it could reach 5.2 percent of the continent’s GDP by 2025, contributing nearly $180 billion to its economy up from $115 billion in 2020.
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