Republic of Congo launches data center in Pointe-Noire for 2Africa cable

The Republic of the Congo (aka Congo-Brazzaville) government has launched a new data center.

The government recently announced that the President of the Republic, Denis Sassou N'Guesso, activated Congo's connection to the 2Africa cable on February 28 in Pointe-Noire.

At the same time, he commissioned the new data center built by the Postal and Electronic Communications Regulatory Agency (ARPCE).

“ARPCE grants itself, on behalf of the State, with this second data center after the one built in Brazzaville in 2021, a greater data storage capacity in order to streamline exchanges, amplify and boost the digital ecosystem national and sub-regional,” said Louis-Marc Sakala, the general director of ARPCE.

“The data center will thus solve for the Congo this global problem that other countries still encounter, that of the storage and security of so-called sovereign data.”

The new facility cost 3.8 billion CFA francs ($6.3 million) – it reportedly took two years to build and holds capacity for up to 54 racks across 156 sqm (1,680 sq ft). ARPCE previously built a data center in Brazzaville in 2021.

As reported back in August, the new 2Africa CLS is reportedly located close to the existing decade-old CLS hosting the West Africa Cable System (WACS) cable.

At 45,000km, 2Africa is the world's longest subsea cable and will connect 33 countries with 46 landing points across Africa, Europe, and Asia when it is complete. Meta, along with Telecom Egypt, China Mobile International, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, STC, Vodafone, and the West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) announced the 2Africa cable back in 2020.

Work laying the East African portion of the cable started in late 2022. Work on the west portion of the cable began last year. Landings in the Ivory Coast, Portugal, and the UK are planned in the coming months.

In other recent cable news:

- EllaLink announced Sénégal Numérique and CVTelecom have partnered with the cable provider to land the Europe-to-Brazil EllaLink cable at Dakar in Senegal via Praia in Cape Verde.

- The Irish government is reportedly backing the Far North Fiber cable project to land the Arctic Europe-to-Japan cable in Galway, Ireland.