At the Reliability, Efficiency & Scalability: Enhancing Sustainable Infrastructure for the Modern Data Center session at Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town last week, industry leaders urged African operators to pursue sustainability without compromising the core fundamentals of reliability and resilience.
Moderated by Temitope Osunrinde, Executive Director of Africa Hyperscalers, the discussion featured Eben Owen, Senior Director at Uptime Institute; Mark Acton, Executive Director and Head of Technical Due Diligence at the Data Centre Alliance and Future-Tech; and Wilfried Dudink, Senior Director, Strategy and Development at Digital Realty.
While panelists agreed that the global focus on green data centers has accelerated, they warned that sustainability must complement – not replace – the operational basics that keep critical systems running. “Yes, sustainability is key, and we’ve seen that focus evolve over the last few years,” one speaker noted. “However, we must also remain true to the fundamentals: ensuring resilience.”

Eben Owen emphasized that Uptime Tier Standards remain universally applicable, even in Africa’s high-temperature, grid-constrained environments. “A Tier III in Africa and France should be the same – concurrently maintainable and so on,” he said. “Each region has its advantages and disadvantages, but the tiering framework is designed to balance them, creating parity across markets.”
Panelists also discussed how African data-center operators can avoid overbuilding capacity without matching demand. The consensus was that Africa is ready for artificial intelligence, but the focus should now shift to developing the applications and workloads that will drive AI adoption sustainably. “Build, and it will come – only works when you understand what’s coming,” one participant cautioned, highlighting the risk of a capacity bubble.
The session closed with a call for education and awareness across the ecosystem – encouraging collaboration between developers, investors, and regulators to align on standards, energy efficiency, and digital-skills development. The speakers agreed that Africa’s next competitive advantage will be about resilient, efficient, and scalable design that endures in the continent’s unique conditions.

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