By Prince Osuagwu

Data centre operators, MDXi, says it is injecting an additional N2.5 billion worth of investments to strengthen its operations in Nigeria, raising its investment stake from N10.7 billion in phase one to N12.2 billion in the current phase two.

Data racks

The additional investment is targeted at enhancing and raising MDXi’s capacity in local data hosting from 300 to 600 racks.

General Manager, MDXi, Mr. Gbenga Adegbiji, during a media tour of MDXi Data Centre facilities in Lagos at the weekend, “The need for expansion is based on customer’s demand, having occupied almost all the available space left in the existing 300 rack space that was built in 2015, during the first phase construction in Lekki. Since 2015 when MDXi data centre was launched, the management had spent a total of $35 million, estimated at N10.7 billion, on building capacity in the last five years to create a world class data service centre.”

Adegbiji added; “The time has come for government to make stronger policies to ensure that private sector and organs of state host very important critical national data for security and economic reasons. Government needs to know the importance of data domestication in Nigeria.

When data is hosted abroad the outside world gets our data before us because they have access to it. As it stands, over 70 percent of Nigerian banks host data at MDXi and out of the 22 banks in Nigeria, 21 of them have something to do with MDXi data centre. MDXi expansion from 300 racks to 600 racks is as a result of increasing customer needs.”

Admitting that data centre business is capital intensive, Adegbiji called on federal government to support data centre operations in Nigeria. “There is need for proper regulation of data centres in the country and government should declare data centre operation as critical national infrastructure that needs attention because of the critical role it plays in the economy of any country.

Sixty percent of all operation cost is power related because of our peculiar environment. We use more power to evacuate heat from the sensitive areas of the data centre. We have extremes of temperature and humidity here and that cost reflects on the unit cost customers pay per rack.

“Governement should also come up with regulations to ensure that companies and government agencies host data locally because increase in local data hosting will further drive down the cost,” Adegbiji said.