South Africa’s Teraco Data Environments has secured 400 million Rand ($34.5m) in funding to upgrade kit and expand the infrastructure in its data centers and Internet exchange point (IXP).

The data center operator has been on an upgrade drive for the last three years, according to Teraco CEO Lex van Wyk, having added three new facilities in that period, in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. It also built a 10 MVA power plant, powering over 6 000m2 of data center space.

Aside from providing crucial IT infrastructure to clients, the data center operator also has a role in helping South African businesses roll out their own telecommunications equipment. Teraco also runs a service to connect businesses to submarine cable systems for international voice communications and IT.

Explosive innovation and growth

“Telecoms is an exciting industry to be in right now – it is at the heart of the explosive innovation and growth that’s centred around the Internet,” said van Wyk. Demand for telecoms services has seen Teraco evolve into being the internet exchange point (IXP) and connectivity hub for sub- Saharan Africa. “The securing of the additional Barclays Capital funding will allow Teraco to remain a significant contributor in the industry,” said van Wyk.

“This is a further significant milestone for Teraco,” said its chief financial officer Jan Hnizdo. “This [money] together with internally generated funds [is] continuing our large scale investments into data center infrastructure roll-outs,” said Hnizdo In July Johannesburg-based Teraco’s NAPAfrica IXP overtook the encumbent Johannesburg Internet Exchange, which had been a leader for 18 years, by recording data traffic levels of 15GBPS.

Demand for Teraco’s premium data center services is showing strong growth as the social demographics of South African change and the Internet and cloud technology are adopted by a wider section of the population, said CEO van Wyk.