 Welcome to JSA TV, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Barb Mitchell coming to you live today from the floor here inside in the floor of PTC 23 in beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii. And joining me is Niraj Shah, Director of Business Development and Sales at IAX Africa. Good afternoon. Yeah, so great to have you. I know you made the long journey over. I think this is your inaugural experience of PTC. What are your impressions so far? Yeah, my first trip down. It's actually quite cool. Yeah, I like it. I was a bit hesitant to come down because it's a long flight, but it was just 30 hours, I think you said. Yes. Yeah. Tell everyone where you were coming from. Yeah, flew down from Narobi, went down to Doha and then from Doha down to Seattle and then from Seattle down to Honolulu. So yeah, quite an intense flight, but it's actually quite cool being here and I like it. It's my first event and I think it's a very nice event. Yeah. Great for networking. So great. I had the opportunity to speak as well. Yeah. What were you speaking on? Actually, digitalization in East Africa in Kenya, that was my angle and I talked about IxAfrica and how we got to this place where we are right now and we're on the next steps. So it was quite interesting for people to understand more about Africa as well. Yes, I think so. Yeah. Like I said, that's the next billion, so there you go. Yeah. We were talking about this a little bit before, weren't we, just the amount of just conversation and interest and just the timing of it seems like the industries, everyone's eyes are on Africa right now and so let's back up and I know you mentioned you introduced during your panel people just about IxAfrica, so if you wouldn't mind doing that again for our viewers here, I'd appreciate it. So IxAfrica started, I think the whole idea started a little bit in 2020, but we broke ground in 2021 and we're up with our first phase of four and a half megawatts. So it's a hyperscale data center, which is going to be 22 and a half megawatts of IT power, which is about 40 megawatts of side part, that's our first campus. And why Africa? Why Kenya? Because it's got such a big demand for internet and a growing young population, which is going to be using cloud application, they're adopting it quite well and the other element is the ecosystem is digitally enhanced, very savvy, so it's growing in such a big way. It's great and so that kind of led to IxAfrica coming in. And then with the trend where the hype is now wanting to come into Africa, Kenya has got its benefits, which I can talk about as we go along on sustainability and all, but yeah, it's been a great move and it's actually working out quite well. So you alluded to it, so let's talk about sustainability, it's such an important topic for everyone. Absolutely. Yeah, no, no. So it's great. You know, one of the factors that kind of make Kenya stand out from the rest of Africa is the fact that it's 90% green. The energy is 90% green, so it's low carbon, hydroelectric, geothermal, solar and wind make up 90% of the power produced in Kenya. So it's actually very beneficial and everybody's looking at Kenya being easily accessible. The fiber connectivity is fantastic. So it's just right. Now the other element that's making work is apart from the sustainability, which is what I talked about, is the fact that it's actually very stable from a regulatory perspective and a political perspective. So it's easy to do business in. So I think more and more hypers are understanding the benefits that Kenya has and it's got a market of about 400 million people that one can access. So yeah, it's absolutely great. Yeah, and on that front, just in conversations I've been hearing over the last few days, actually a panel we had here earlier today just talking about too, just the growth explosion that's happening in Africa and the benefit from a sustainability perspective to be able to get in front of building things right is kind of the theme. Absolutely. And I think that was one of the factors that sustainability is key, but we also have something that we call keep it Africa as a sustainable supply chain as well. You know, that's kind of boosting the economy as well, locally sought out equipment, good backup. All of that comes into play and that makes it more and more achievable, more and more interesting for all the hypers as well, because they want to tick that box as well. And it's an important factor. So yeah, it's actually the entry into Africa. East Africa is very central, a lot of subsea cables coming around as well now. That's making another boost, pushing the growth. So all eyes are definitely on Africa, more so in East Africa. And so that's what we're hoping for. And so in order to do this, I think investment is always important. I believe you have that, you have some new investment, can you tell us about that? Yeah, we've now got Helios investment partners coming into, they've taken over equity, prior equity, they've pumped in $50 million. And that's accelerated our development of the campus. And they're quite excited about it. And now with them on board and them having understood Guy, who's our chairman's capability, they've actually taken him in on board as a board of directors for Helios as well to guide them on data center investment. So yeah, Ike's Africa, definitely way ahead right now. I reckon that the competition's probably about 18 to 24 months away from us. Wow, that's a good head start. So yeah, we're ahead of the game and we have our own land, five acres, and the green from most of the water point. So achievable from low PUE power consumption, power utilization. So the fact that we have a very low WUE because Nairobi's up there, 6,000 feet. So you don't use too much power or water to cool down. It's free cooling for about six, seven, three months, four months. So yeah, and Helios is, I think they're quite happy about what we've done and the way the campus has been set up. And that's given them the confidence to come in very aggressively with us. So yeah, certainly a plus for us. Yeah, congratulations. We'll be excited to talk to you over the next year or so as all of this unfolds and continues to develop with Ike's Africa. And for those of our viewers who can, I know you're meeting with people in person today, but not everyone was able to make the journey. A lot of our viewers are watching live and maybe wondering how they can connect with you. Yeah. So the easiest way is my email, there's nerijs at Ike'safrica.co.ke, but you can come down to Nairobi as well because it's a great city. Yeah, why not? Right? So always, always, always a plus. But yeah, and then you can visit our website, www.axafrica.co.ke. Perfect. Nerijs, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Yeah, it was fun. It was good to chat with you and hear all of your updates. Great. So thank you. Thanks. And thank you viewers for tuning in to JSA TV, coming to you live here from the floor of PTC 23. Happy networking.