Projects

Supporting Pan-African data centre expansion with PAIX

Africa is witnessing the highest internet growth in the world. However, the existing internet infrastructure is struggling to meet demand being driven by the growing younger population.

Key information

Client Paix

Location Kenya

Project type Real estate

Services Project management

Project timeline 2020 - 2021

Nairobi Number One (NBO-1) project

There are several initiatives to improve both domestic and international fibre connectivity in African countries, which will give further momentum to Africa’s demand for internet access. However, without high quality, carrier neutral data centres, this demand will not be sufficiently met. PAIX is investing to address this gap, by building a network of internet focused, carrier and vendor neutral data centres built to international quality, across Africa.

PAIX is a Pan-African provider of carrier and cloud-neutral data centre services. Founded in 2016 by a team of data centre, telecom industry and investment professionals it has a strong track record in the African market. Its data centre operations aim to offer a leading global quality service level to its national and international customer base across the African continent.

The PAIX NBO-1 carrier and cloud-neutral data centre, located at Britam Tower in the heart of Nairobi’s financial district, provides a secure and scalable infrastructure for mission-critical IT systems, with ample power capacity and a wide range of connectivity solutions.

It provides 690 m2 of white space, 240 cabinets, redundant design (N+1) architecture – allowing maintenance operations with no service interruption. A visitor area, dedicated customer office areas, and meetings rooms are also available.

Built to world-class standards with uninterruptable power source generators and cooling systems, by tapping into the national grid in Kenya, the data centre’s sustainability attributes are further enhanced with much of the national power in Kenya coming from clean energy sources.

project story

Pan-African data centre delivery

Core to the success of this project has been key stakeholder management and guidance on effective project delivery, along with meeting PAIX’s local and international development guidelines for the various approval gateways.

We were commissioned as project managers to the NBO-1 project to:

Bring together a team that drove the localisation of PAIX’s vision for their data centres, diligently managed the project, procured the equipment and completed the project at the height of COVID-19 pandemic.
Provide detailed information around project processes and developed understanding within the PAIX team.
Bring best practice methodologies from our global and local experience to the project, specifically in how to manage and deliver data centre projects in line with PAIX standards.
Provide strategic programme support development of this in-depth programme in a way that ensured all deliverables were achieved.

Our network of offices across 12 major capital cities in Africa enables us to support PAIX in their expansion across the continent.

Committed to delivering data centres sustainably

PAIX is committed to sustainably build and operate and is constantly looking for new ways to optimise energy efficiency, reduce emissions and cut waste. PAIX is a contributor to the development of the African Data Centres Code of Conduct, and PAIX NBO-1 is an example of that commitment to sustainability in which the company applied world class technologies for the most efficient data centre operations.