The government of Mali has inaugurated a new data center facility in its capital city, Bamako.

Described as a Tier III-standard data center, the facility was officially launched on January 31, reports Ecofin Agency and TechAfrica News.

Alhamdou Ag Ilyène, Mali’s Minister of Communication, Digital Economy, and Administrative Modernization, said during the opening ceremony: "This achievement constitutes a decisive step toward safeguarding and securing national data, helping ensure digital sovereignty and technological independence."

It's hoped that the data center will help Mali reduce its reliance on foreign infrastructure and overseas cloud services.

It has been designed to offer a 99.982 percent service availability and has a full redundancy of critical equipment. Details about the exact location, size, and capacity of the facility have not been shared.

The government is currently undergoing a "gradual process" of repatriating the data hosted outside the country.

Previous reports suggest that Huawei was working with the Malian government on a Tier III data center, but the Chinese company has not been mentioned in reports of the recent launch. The Huawei data center was part of "Mali Numérique," a project that also included installing 1,000km (621 miles) of fiber optic cabling in the country.

The project is part of the "Alliance of Sahel States," in which many participating nations are making efforts to develop their digital infrastructure. Burkina Faso recently launched two mini data centers, and Niger has announced it is planning to acquire high-capacity data centers.

Mali is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is unclear how many data centers are located in the country.