Econet Wireless Zimbabwe to Launch New 5-Megawatt Data Centre in Harare by Month-End
Econet Wireless Zimbabwe is set to begin onboarding corporate clients to its newly built 5-megawatt (MW) data centre in Harare by the end of June, marking a major milestone in the country’s digital infrastructure development. The state-of-the-art facility, developed in partnership with Africa Data Centres (ADC), aims to offer businesses reliable and secure IT hosting solutions amid growing demand for digital services.
The Econet Data Centre (EDC), fully owned by Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, is designed to provide uninterrupted power supply, ensuring 100 percent availability for clients’ critical systems. With services ranging from cloud storage and cybersecurity to artificial intelligence capabilities, the data centre will support enterprises looking for robust digital solutions without the burden of managing on-site infrastructure.
Dr Douglas Mboweni, Group CEO of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, highlighted the strategic value of the EDC in a press briefing, saying the facility would host IT infrastructure from companies looking for dependable uptime and advanced computing services. He confirmed that the data centre will provide access to technologies from global leaders such as Google, Microsoft, and Palo Alto Networks—all operating under the umbrella of Cassava Technologies.
“We eventually plan to expand the data centre to a 10 MW facility because of the expected demands from AI,” said Dr Mboweni, indicating Econet’s long-term vision for scalable growth in response to evolving digital needs.
One of the facility’s key selling points is its power resilience. Dr Mboweni emphasised that load shedding continues to pose challenges for businesses across Zimbabwe. The EDC is built with multiple layers of high-spec power backup, ensuring that clients can rely on consistent, uninterrupted access to their data and applications.
“It is hard for a company to have proper computer capability if there is frequent load shedding. This facility has multiple layers of power availability to the highest specifications,” he said. “Companies don’t need to have ‘on-premise servers’. They simply bring their servers to us, and we do the rest.”
He added that client IT teams are allowed full access to manage and monitor their systems within the data centre, offering flexibility without interference from Econet’s internal operations.
The facility will serve as a central hub for digital services in Zimbabwe, providing secure and scalable solutions that enable businesses to thrive in an increasingly data-driven economy. A data centre is a physical facility that houses powerful computing infrastructure capable of processing, storing and delivering large volumes of data to users remotely—making it an essential part of modern IT ecosystems.
Africa Data Centres, Econet’s sister company and the largest data centre operator on the continent, already manages facilities in major African cities including Johannesburg, Nairobi and Lagos. The partnership with ADC brings world-class expertise and operational standards to Zimbabwe’s digital infrastructure landscape.
With the onboarding of clients beginning soon, Econet’s new data centre signals a significant step toward enhancing digital resilience and supporting cloud transformation efforts for businesses across the country.
