On the edge of Johannesburg’s business district, a plain-looking building hums quietly. Inside, cool air and rows of blinking servers keep time like a heartbeat. This is Visa’s new African data center, a R1 billion (about $57 million) investment that keeps African transactions on African soil, speeding up payments, cutting costs, and boosting security.
It is one signal among many that a different kind of gold rush is underway. This time, the prize is not in the ground but in fiber-optic cables and climate-controlled rooms. From Lagos to Nairobi, private companies are building the backbone for a digital economy that could shape the continent’s growth for decades.
Visa is not alone. Microsoft is investing ZAR 5.4 billion (about $297 million) to expand cloud and AI-ready infrastructure in South Africa and to fund certification exams for 50,000 people in technical skills (Microsoft Newsroom). In West Africa, MainOne (now part of Equinix) is expanding facilities in Lagos to support fintech, e-commerce, and streaming demand. Teraco, the region’s largest operator, continues to grow in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
The reason is simple: demand is soaring. Mobile internet use is climbing fast, with several sources pointing to data usage rising around 40% a year (Reuters). By 2030, Africa could have more than one billion mobile connections, deepening the need for nearby compute and storage to keep apps responsive and affordable. Local hosting also helps organizations comply with privacy rules, including Kenya’s Data Protection Act and Nigeria’s Data Protection Act.
Private capital is setting the pace, but governments still shape the playing field. Data protection laws, tax incentives, grid reliability, and special economic zones influence where facilities go and how quickly they scale. The difference between a thriving hub and a missed opportunity often comes down to steady policy and power.
Development finance is helping extend the map. In April 2025, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) committed $100 million to Raxio Group to build facilities in Ethiopia, Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, the DRC, and Uganda—its largest digital-infrastructure investment in Africa to date. That kind of de-risking helps newer markets join the digital economy sooner.
The scale of the opportunity is striking. Africa has about 307 MW of operational data-center capacity—less than 2% of the global total. Meeting demand by 2030 will likely require 1,000 MW or more across hundreds of new facilities. Industry sentiment points in the same direction, with operators signaling continued expansion rather than a slowdown (Energy News Network).
The payoff is bigger than faster apps. Data centers create jobs during construction and operations—technicians, network engineers, facility managers, cybersecurity specialists. They also enable entire ecosystems: cloud services, AI startups, BPO, digital media, and fintech. That matters because Africa’s working-age population is set to surge through mid-century. The UN projects the 20–64 population will approach a quarter of the global working-age total by 2050 (UNECA). If governments align education and training with this sector’s needs, data infrastructure can absorb part of that youth wave and raise incomes.
There are hurdles. Building a Tier III-standard site can cost more than $10 million per megawatt, and currency volatility can complicate financing. Power is a constraint too: facilities need reliable electricity, ideally from renewables to manage cost and sustainability (Energy News Network). The talent pipeline is tight, though initiatives like Microsoft’s training program are a step in the right direction.
Africa has seen moments like this. In the 2000s, mobile phones re-wired markets and put entire industries on new paths. Countries that moved early gained advantages that lasted. The same could happen now. The servers humming in Johannesburg, Lagos, Nairobi, and beyond may look unremarkable from the outside. Inside, they are engines of growth—and a chance for the continent to keep more of the value it creates.