The SADC Regional Carrier-Neutral Data Centre will provide shared, resilient and neutral digital infrastructure for hosting regional content, cloud services, Internet Exchange Point functions and disaster-recovery services. By locating critical data and services within the region, the project is intended to reduce dependence on costly international transit, lower operational costs and strengthen the availability, security and resilience of digital services across SADC.
The SADC Regional Carrier-Neutral Data Centre a strategic ICT infrastructure project under the PIDA Priority Action Plan 2 (PAP2) to develop a Tier III certified, carrier-neutral data centre to serve as the primary regional digital hub for the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The facility is designed to host the SADC Regional Internet Exchange Point (IXP), ICANN Root Server Instances, and cloud services infrastructure. Tier III certification guarantees 99.982% uptime with a maximum of 1.6 hours (95 minutes) of downtime annually, N+1 fault tolerant systems, and 72-hour power protection. The project is structured as a public-private partnership (PPP) with an estimated total facility investment of USD 10 million. The project institution is the SADC Secretariat, SATA, and the hosting country. Beneficiary countries include all 16 SADC member states: Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The Digital Investment Facility (DIF), an EU co-funded service, is conducting a comprehensive feasibility, market, and regulatory study to enhance the bankability of the project and facilitate investor engagement. As of late 2025, a competitive evaluation process is underway to select the host country for the SADC Regional IXP component, with Botswana (via BoFiNet and its newly launched Digital Delta Data Centre) and a Zimbabwean entity shortlisted in the final evaluation stage.
A data center is a critical information infrastructure. It complements IXPs to rely less on international transit for Internet. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Internet has shown to a be an absolute prerequisite of modern living and a tool that can be used to protect people, save lives, to enable people to telecommute, students to keep up with their studies and for everyone to keep in touch with their families and friends. Most online content, tools and services used were hosted outside the region and this placed a lot of strain on the costly International Internet links. A data center is the digital heart of each public or private network providing access to data and services via the Internet.
1. Centralize regional data infrastructure to improve efficiency, security, and reduce operational costs across SADC member states. 2. Optimize internet access costs by localizing traffic and reducing international bandwidth dependency, thereby improving performance of internet access to meet current and future regional demands. 3. Ensure service resilience through Tier III certification (99.982% uptime, maximum 1.6 hours downtime annually, N+1 fault tolerant systems, 72-hour power protection). 4. Create a cloud service ecosystem to spur digital innovation, providing government and the private sector with simple, flexible, scalable, and secured solutions with disaster recovery capability. 5. Provide disaster recovery and backup services for SADC member states. 6. Enable e-services and e-government applications across the region. 7. Enhance data sovereignty and regional data governance by enabling entities to locate, host, and manage data within regional or national borders. 8. Support the SADC digital transformation agenda and the SADC Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan (RIDMP). 9. Host the SADC Regional Internet Exchange Point (IXP) and additional Root Server Instances to keep regional internet traffic local. 10. Connect people living in rural and remote areas to the digital economy through improved regional digital infrastructure.
Original PIDA PAP 2 submission - Objective and Rationale
To develop guidelines and establish a SADC Regional Carrier-Neutral Data Center to centralise the various critical and complementary core infrastructure elements that will reduce operational costs, further optimise the performance of Internet access to meet current and future demands of region and to ensure that the Internet access, tools and services are available and remain resilient against any regional or global crisis. The motivation of a regional data center is to reduce the cost of and stimulate hosting of content, create a cloud-based services ecosystem to accelerate e-services, and provide Government and the private sector with simple, flexible, scalable and secured solutions, with disaster recovery capability, in the region.