Kgomotso Lebele | Country Managing Director | Accenture | mail me |
South Africa’s data centre sector is expanding rapidly. New investment is creating opportunities for economic growth, digital innovation and regional connectivity. It is also positioning the country as a strategic hub for Africa’s digital economy.
The country now hosts nearly half of Africa’s data centre capacity. The local market is projected to grow from US$2.16 billion in 2024 to US$3.40 billion by 2030. Utilisation rates are also expected to reach 94%.
Furthermore, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana highlighted during his recent speech that data centres are critical infrastructure. He placed them alongside strategic national assets such as electricity, ports and transport networks. The country is no longer simply hosting enterprise IT systems. Instead, it is increasingly becoming a platform for cloud services, financial services, digital commerce and AI innovation across the continent. As this infrastructure grows, so does the importance of resilience.
Building resilient digital infrastructure
Modern data centres are far more than buildings housing servers. They are highly interconnected environments where power management, cooling systems, backup energy, environmental controls and physical security all play a role in maintaining uptime. A disruption affecting any one of these components can have consequences far beyond a single facility. It can affect organisations, customers and services that depend on uninterrupted access.
This challenge is particularly relevant in South Africa. Ongoing energy constraints have encouraged operators to integrate generators, battery storage, solar capacity and other alternative energy solutions into their environments. These investments strengthen continuity, but they also increase operational complexity. Every new integration creates additional dependencies that operators must manage and secure.
The country has already seen examples of how infrastructure disruption can affect organisations and consumers. One of the local internet service providers experienced a ransomware attack that exploited a vulnerability that had been publicly documented for almost two years. The incident disrupted fibre, hosting and cloud services. It highlighted the potential impact when infrastructure providers become compromised.
In 2025, a software fault at a major internet exchange point affected connectivity for multiple South African internet service providers. It also interrupted services relied upon by millions of users. Although the incident did not result from a cyberattack, it demonstrated how concentrated digital infrastructure can create widespread disruption when resilience mechanisms fail.
The governance implications are becoming increasingly important
Many organisations continue to manage cybersecurity, operational technology, facilities management and supplier oversight through separate structures. Yet infrastructure disruptions rarely remain confined to a single function. A failure in one area can affect cloud environments, customer services, financial systems and supply chains simultaneously.
Our State of Cyber Resilience research highlights the extent of this challenge. Eighty-two percent of South African organisations lack mature governance models for operational technology environments. Meanwhile, 89% have limited visibility across interconnected operational systems and third-party suppliers. Many incident response capabilities also remain focused primarily on traditional IT environments. They therefore overlook the broader operational ecosystems on which organisations increasingly depend.
Organisations that are strengthening resilience most effectively are focusing on fundamentals. They are integrating security into facility design and separating operational systems from core IT environments. They are also tightening supplier access controls and regularly testing recovery plans under realistic conditions. Just as importantly, these organisations are creating clearer accountability across the full technology and operational landscape. This approach prevents them from managing risk in isolated silos.
Resilience is also becoming an important business differentiator. Investors, hyperscalers and enterprise customers are increasingly evaluating organisations on their ability to maintain continuity. They are also assessing how quickly organisations can recover from disruption and manage operational risk effectively. Consequently, resilience is becoming increasingly important to South Africa’s digital future as digital infrastructure expands and becomes more interconnected.
Resilience as a strategic priority
South Africa has spent decades building the connectivity, infrastructure and expertise needed to become a leading digital hub on the continent. As dependence on data centres, cloud platforms and digital services continues to grow, resilience will become an increasingly important part of that success. Stronger resilience can support investment, protect digital services and reinforce confidence in the country’s technology ecosystem.
The expansion of data centre infrastructure, therefore, creates both opportunities and responsibilities. Organisations must ensure that growth does not outpace their ability to manage operational and cybersecurity risks. They must also recognise that infrastructure resilience extends beyond individual facilities. It encompasses technology, energy, suppliers, governance, recovery capabilities and the wider digital ecosystem.
For business leaders, this means treating resilience as a strategic business priority rather than simply an IT concern. Effective governance, operational resilience and cybersecurity must evolve alongside the infrastructure supporting the country’s digital economy. These measures will help protect the investments driving South Africa’s digital future while enabling organisations to respond more effectively to emerging risks.
Ultimately, the strength of South Africa’s digital future will depend not only on how much digital infrastructure the country builds, but also on how reliably it can operate. Data centres, cloud platforms and connectivity networks will continue to underpin economic activity across the continent. Building resilience into these systems will therefore be essential to sustaining growth, innovation and regional digital leadership.