WIOCC bets on owned infrastructure with national data center build-out in South Africa

After securing new growth financing, the connectivity group moves to acquire a multi-city portfolio that broadens its reach from fiber networks into physical digital assets.

WIOCC is accelerating its transition from a wholesale connectivity provider to an owner of core digital infrastructure, following up a recently announced $65 million sustainability-linked funding round with plans to acquire a portfolio of data centers across South Africa.

The transaction, expected to be finalized pending regulatory clearance, will be carried out through the company’s data center division, Open Access Data Centres. The assets include facilities in major hubs such as Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban’s Umhlanga corridor, as well as regional sites in Gqeberha, East London and Bloemfontein. Together, the network extends WIOCC’s presence beyond primary metros, positioning the group to serve enterprise customers, regional failover needs and applications where low latency is critical.

Rather than a stand-alone deal, the acquisition aligns with how the company intends to deploy its newly raised capital. The $65 million financing package, supported by a group of development and institutional backers, was structured to fund long-term expansion of both network capacity and open-access data center infrastructure. By blending foreign currency and local currency tranches, the facility is designed to support capital-intensive projects while managing exposure to exchange-rate volatility.

The move reflects a broader strategic repositioning. WIOCC is working to integrate its subsea systems, long-haul and metropolitan fiber networks, and owned data center assets into a unified platform. For cloud providers, content platforms and multinational enterprises, this kind of end-to-end infrastructure is increasingly attractive, as it simplifies procurement, improves resilience and reduces the performance gaps that can arise when connectivity and hosting are sourced separately.

South Africa sits at the center of that approach. As the continent’s most mature colocation and interconnection market, it concentrates a large share of enterprise demand and international cloud on-ramps. Establishing a wider physical footprint there allows WIOCC to anchor regional traffic flows while supporting customers that operate both locally and across Southern Africa.

The deal has received regulatory approval subject to public-interest commitments, including provisions related to inclusive ownership and participation. From an operational perspective, the next phase will focus on integrating the facilities into WIOCC’s broader network fabric, aligning service levels and upgrading infrastructure to deliver a consistent national offering.

If completed as planned, the acquisition signals more than geographic expansion. It highlights a growing convergence in Africa’s digital infrastructure landscape, where network operators are moving closer to compute, and data center platforms are embedding more deeply into connectivity. For WIOCC, the strategy is to sit at the intersection of both, shaping how data moves, is hosted, and is exchanged across the region.