Digital transformation is a key priority for the Congolese government, which intends to bolster the nation's telecommunications infrastructure to support its objectives.

The Republic of Congo's new national data center is expected to be inaugurated next November, according to the government. Construction of the facility, which began in early 2024, is already 80% complete.

Léon Juste Ibombo, Minister of Posts, Telecommunications, and the Digital Economy, announced this on Thursday, Feb. 28, during a site visit. He was accompanied by Solomane Koné, Deputy Director General for Central Africa at the African Development Bank (AfDB), which is financing the project with a $13 million investment.

The specific features and technical details of the data center have not been disclosed to the public. However, it is known that it will be housed in a three-story expandable building with a basement. The facility will include dedicated rooms for servers, monitoring, and supervision, as well as meeting and conference spaces. Separate areas will be reserved for power supply and cooling equipment to ensure the data center operates efficiently.

As the Congolese government seeks to accelerate its digital transformation and make it a pillar of socioeconomic development, the data center’s commissioning could help strengthen the country’s national telecommunications infrastructure. In 2024, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) gave Congo a telecommunications infrastructure index score of 0.2776 out of 1, part of the E-Government Development Index (EGDI). The country ranked 166th out of 193 globally, with its score falling below the averages for Central Africa (0.3354), Africa (0.4247), and the world (0.6382).

The facility is also expected to contribute to Congo’s digital sovereignty, according to officials. “All data generated in Congo must be stored somewhere. Currently, this data is stored abroad, which is why many of our domain names end in ‘.fr’ or ‘.com’ instead of ‘.cg.’ From now on, we will be able to host all public data within the data center, as well as data from telecommunications operators, banks, insurance companies, and other private firms that wish to store their information here—including backups of their primary storage sites,” said Michel Ngakala, Coordinator of the Central African Backbone (CAB) project, during the launch of construction in 2024.

By Isaac K. Kassouwi,

Editing by Sèna D. B. de Sodji