Telecoms group Orange has launched a new data center in Sierra Leone.

Orange Sierra Leone recently inaugurated a €23 million ($26.7m) data center in Bo as a backup to its primary facility in the capital city, Freetown.

Orange Sierra Leone has commissioned its brand new data center in Bo City, a major step to strengthen data security, reliability, and service continuity across the country,” the company said. “The facility is a full-scale replica of Orange Sierra Leone’s data center in Freetown, serving as a disaster recovery hub so that emergencies, outages, or natural disasters do not disrupt digital services nationwide.”

Orange Sierra Leone CEO, Sekou Amadou Bah, said: “We are a trusted digital partner to Sierra Leone. With this center, we aim to power digital innovation across Bo District and beyond.”

Orange’s facility in Freetown launched in 2018. The 940 sqm (10,118 sq ft) site offers capacity for 154 racks across 350 sqm (3,767 sq ft). What was then Airtel’s local unit broke ground on the site in 2016.

Julius Maada Bio, President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, was at the launch ceremony. He said the facility was a “significant milestone” in the country’s digital transformation efforts.

Orange owns around 75 data centers across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Across Africa, the company has facilities in Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Egypt, Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Jordan, and Burkina Faso.

Earlier this year, Orange said it would look to scale and open up its data centers to more third parties, in the same way its towers now host hardware from other telecoms providers – saying its objective was “not to sell these assets for cash.”

However, a report from last month suggests the firm may be looking to sell a stake in at least some of its French facilities.

Orange owns around 42 percent of Sonatel Group, a West African telecoms operator with operations in Sierra Leone. Airtel Sierra Leone was acquired in 2016 and rebranded to Orange Sierra Leone.