Data Centres And Africa’s Infrastructure Challenge: Growth, Resources And Resilience.

If water inside the data centre is not the problem, water outside it may well be. The more pressing question for South Africa, and for Africa more broadly, is whether supporting infrastructure, including pipelines, pump stations and treatment works, can accommodate new data centres during water-intensive construction and through decades of operation. However, this challenge is not limited to data centres. Economic growth across sectors, including mining, renewable energy and commercial operations, depends on reliable service delivery based on well-maintained infrastructure and availability of resources.

This is not a hypothetical concern. Cape Town’s “Day Zero” crisis of 2017 to 2018 brought a major city to the brink of switching off its taps, and Gauteng’s water system is today under visible strain, with the SAHRC itself convening an inquiry into the water crisis in the province.

Against this backdrop, US-listed data centre operator Equinix, has sought to expand its presence in Cape Town. In April 2026, the Housing Assembly, a social movement representing more than 20 Western Cape communities, together with the UK-based technology justice non-profit Foxglove, lodged a formal objection to a proposed 160 MVA hyperscale facility, approximately 14 rugby fields in size.

The objectors argued that the City of Cape Town could not properly assess a landuse application that, in their view, contained insufficient information regarding water use, emissions and diesel-powered backup generation. Concerns regarding a lack of transparency in the application mobilised community opposition. Despite these objections, the Cape Town’s Municipal Planning Tribunal approved the development application for the King Air Industrial precinct on 14 July 2026.

Whatever the merits of that particular dispute, it crystallises the accountability gap. It also raises a difficult policy question: should data centre developers contribute towards strengthening municipal water infrastructure rather than simply connecting to existing systems? There is a precedent emerging elsewhere. Globally and locally, leading operators have begun co-funding municipal water infrastructure, leak-detection programmes and water reuse initiatives as part of their broader social licence to operate. This precedent could support rather than detrimentally impact communities situated near data centres.

There is a further, sobering legal consideration that developers and municipalities should not overlook. Data centres do not fall within the definition of an essential service. If a serious water shortage were to occur, the law does not treat a data centre’s water supply as sacrosanct. Conversely, access to water for communities is constitutionally protected.
Section 27 of the Constitution guarantees everyone the right of access to sufficient water.

The National Water Act gives that right practical force through the Reserve, comprising a basic human needs reserve for drinking, food preparation and personal hygiene, and an ecological reserve. The Reserve enjoys priority: once determined, it is binding on every authority exercising powers under the Act, and during a water shortage a catchment management agency must give preference to the maintenance of the Reserve when it limits or prohibits water use. As indicated in our first article of this series modern data centres generally consume significantly less water than is often assumed.

The concerns raised by communities faced with development in their backyard often relate to resource access. However, an individual’s right to water should, in a genuine shortage, take precedence over the demands of digital infrastructure. That, at least, is the constitutional promise, and it is one communities are entitled to hold us to.

The energy paradox: from liability to offtaker

No conversation about data centres escapes the question of energy, and here the criticism is familiar: Eskom’s generation fleet remains heavily coal-based and will be for the foreseeable future, so is it responsible to add large new industrial loads to that grid? It is a fair concern. But the energy story has, unexpectedly, flipped.

After years of load-shedding, Eskom now finds itself with a surplus. Its energy availability has improved markedly, reserve margins in early 2026 were far higher than a year before, and the utility has reported thousands of megawatts sitting in cold reserve, roughly 13 675 MW by one September 2025 account. Eskom has even launched a “Dynamic Excess Energy” product offering discounted surplus electricity to flexible, high-energy industrial users.

This matters because unused generation capacity is not free: if there is no uptake, the cost of that idle capacity is ultimately passed on to existing consumers through higher tariffs, and tariffs are already climbing steeply, with NERSA having approved increases of 8.76% for Eskom’s direct customers and 9.01% for municipal distributors in 2026. A large, steady, predictable load, exactly what a data centre represents, could absorb some of that surplus and help spread the fixed costs of the grid across more units of demand. In this way, rather than being seen as a burden on the system; it is in fact part of the business case that keeps the system affordable.

There is also a cleaner path forward, particularly in light of grid reliability concerns and the cost of diesel.
A useful example comes from Nigeria, where Rack Centre Phase 2.1 facility became the first EDGE-certified green data centre in sub-Saharan Africa. The company relies on a mixture of gas turbines and diesel generators, with additional solar integration, demonstrating that it is possible to keep the energy and emissions footprint low from the outset. Kenya, whose electricity grid is largely powered by renewable energy, is similarly well positioned.
The lesson for Africa is clear: emerging markets have an opportunity to build sustainability into new projects, while more established markets may need to retrofit existing infrastructure.

Communities: the jobs promise

Perhaps the most important question of all is what these facilities mean for ordinary people. Data centres, along with any infrastructure development, are routinely sold to communities and policymakers on the promise of jobs. That promise deserves scrutiny.

Construction undoubtedly creates work, but it is temporary. The argument raised by activists, is that once a facility is operational, the number of permanent, high-skilled technical roles is modest, and South Africa’s shortage of the relevant skills means even those jobs may not be filled locally.

Again, local data centres are setting the standard – in 2022, Teraco established the Data Centre Academy to upskill disadvantaged individuals, roughly 60% of them women, to improve female representation in the industry. To date 80 individuals have entered the academy, 90% have passed and 50% have been absorbed into Teraco specifically and the remainder in the broader industry. With Africa home to the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population, the skills-development investment is vital and will hopefully be justified by the number of genuine future jobs on offer.

A moment to get it right

South Africa stands at an enviable point in this story. We are not in crisis. Our data centres are not draining our rivers. But we are growing fast, our utilities are fragile, and the facilities being approved now will operate for decades. That combination is precisely why the decisions we make today matter so much, and why the current questions about the environmental impact of data centres and how they should be regulated deserve serious, informed engagement rather than either hype or complacency.

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