>Uninterrupted power is a major challenge here on the continent.

Power is no biggie - network providers have learned to live on power generators.

The main issue is that Cable, Fiber penetration is very low.

> Power is no biggie - network providers have learned to live on power generators.

Equinix datacenters in SV are actually cheaper to run on a generator, but it's not sustainable and against regulations (except obviously in a power outage).

Why is it not sustainable?

> Why is it not sustainable?

Because oil prices won't stay that low forever, in fact Saudi-Arabia and other OPEC members lowered the production quotas to get higher oil prices. The budgets of many countries with natural resources expect a certain price floor for oil - this especially hits Saudi-Arabia as they don't have much economy except oil and a tiny bit of Mecca tourism, but also Russia which has been hit hard by the drop in oil price and which doesn't have any kind of industry that's comparable to oil in terms of exports.

Fair enough, I thought it had something to do with the portable aspects of the generator in particular.

I am of the opinion that oil should really not be wasted for things that don’t require very high energy density, unlike transportation etc. But setting up a coal plant seems like a project of entirely different magnitude.

The margin in the telecom business is crazy high. As far as I know, no network in West Africa provides unlimited phone calls. - mostly prepaid and per second billing.

In other words, input (diesel in this case) is directly related to output (profit.)

Namibia is supposedly good as well

https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/IC.ELC.OUTG/rank...

I think you could do Morocco as well, but isn't uninterrupted power also a major issue in South Africa. You only have Eskom and they don't seem to be that well run or have enough well maintained power plants.

Having data centers in Morocco probably doesn't give that much of an advantage, seeing as it's so close to Europe.

Out of all the African countries, why Rwanda?

It's criss-crossed with fiber, the ICT policy is very open and the leadership friendly. Also it's a small country.

And landlocked, no natural resources, just a lot of people, so they need to export something to get foreign currency. IT is ideal so they are educating for that.

Also safe and not corrupt. Can't bribe yourself out of a speeding ticket there...

When I hear Rwanda I can't thinking the genocide that happened there only 23 years ago. Has it changed so much since those days?

It's completely unrecognizable.

They've made incredible strides.

If you're going to build a huge data center, how much harder is it to throw in a little natural gas or oil power plant on the edge of the campus?

That may be the solution they end up implementing.

Maybe Ghana as well or even Egypt.

I think the parent is too pessimistic. You are right, and Nigeria and Kenya would be acceptable choices too.

Kenya