The Chief Executive Officer, Rack Centre, Ayotunde Coker, speaks on the data sovereignty, management of data centres and data security in this interview with IFE OGUNFUWARack Centre has been in operation since August 2013; seven years. In that time, we have transformed the data hosting industry, set a new bar for quality and customer service. We have also put Nigeria on the global map for data centre services.
Rack Centre is now positioning Nigeria as the heart of digital data hosting infrastructure in West Africa Sub Sahara Africa. We are doubling our scale to 1.5MW of power, the largest carrier-neutral facility in West Africa and we are looking at further expansion on the same campus beyond that. We still have data centres concentrated in commercial areas like Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt. What is hindering the spread of data centres to other states in the country?
We host many of the big banks for instance and those banks have branches all around the country. We are able to connect all the branches regardless of their location.We built our own power infrastructure. We have been running for seven years without one second of downtime because we have invested in very sophisticated power off-grid. Right now, because we are expanding significantly, we are looking at a whole range of power options.
Because we track and monitor external forces, we prepared ahead when the COVID-19 started. By last week in February, before the index case came in, we tracked global patterns and we put in place COVID-19 action plan. Coincidentally, after we implemented the action plan, the index case arrived.
They need tax exemption, we need to allow start-ups grow and becomes great business..... Give them loan at 1% interest rate etc