By: Kgomotso Lebele - Country Managing Director for Accenture, South Africa

South Africa's data centre sector is expanding rapidly. New investment is creating opportunities for economic growth, digital innovation and regional connectivity, while positioning the country as a strategic hub for Africa's digital economy. The country now hosts nearly half of Africa's data centre capacity, with the local market projected to grow from US$2.16 billion in 2024 to US$3.40 billion by 2030, with utilisation rates expected to reach 94%.

Furthermore, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana highlighted during his recent speech that data centres as critical infrastructure, placing them alongside strategic national assets such as electricity, ports and transport networks. The country is no longer simply hosting enterprise IT systems. It is increasingly becoming a platform for cloud services, financial services, digital commerce and AI innovation across the continent. As this infrastructure grows, so does the importance of resilience.

Modern data centres are far more than buildings housing servers. They are highly interconnected environments where power management, cooling systems, backup energy, environmental controls and physical security all play a role in maintaining uptime. A disruption affecting any one of these components can have consequences far beyond a single facility, affecting organisations, customers and services that depend on uninterrupted access.

This challenge is particularly relevant in South Africa. Ongoing energy constraints have encouraged operators to integrate generators, battery storage, solar capacity and other alternative energy solutions into their environments. These investments strengthen continuity, but they also increase operational complexity. Every new integration creates additional dependencies that must be managed and secured.

The country has already seen examples of how infrastructure disruption can affect organisations and consumers. One of the local internet services providers experienced a ransomware attack that exploited a vulnerability that had been publicly documented for almost two years. The incident disrupted fibre, hosting and cloud services, highlighting the potential impact when infrastructure providers are compromised.

In 2025, a software fault at a major internet exchange point affected connectivity for multiple South African internet service providers and interrupted services relied upon by millions of users. Although the incident was not the result of a cyberattack, it demonstrated how concentrated digital infrastructure can create widespread disruption when resilience mechanisms fail.

The governance implications are becoming increasingly important

Many organisations continue to manage cybersecurity, operational technology, facilities management and supplier oversight through separate structures. Yet infrastructure disruptions rarely remain confined to a single function. A failure in one area can affect cloud environments, customer services, financial systems and supply chains simultaneously.

Accenture's State of Cyber Resilience research highlights the extent of this challenge. Eighty-two percent of South African organisations lack mature governance models for operational technology environments, while 89% have limited visibility across interconnected operational systems and third-party suppliers. Many incident response capabilities also remain focused primarily on traditional IT environments rather than the broader operational ecosystems on which organisations increasingly depend.

Organisations that are strengthening resilience most effectively are focusing on fundamentals. They are integrating security into facility design, separating operational systems from core IT environments, tightening supplier access controls and regularly testing recovery plans under realistic conditions. Just as importantly, they are creating clearer accountability across the full technology and operational landscape rather than managing risk in isolated silos.

Resilience is also becoming an important business differentiator. Investors, hyperscalers and enterprise customers are increasingly evaluating organisations on their ability to maintain continuity, recover quickly from disruption and manage operational risk effectively.

South Africa has spent decades building the connectivity, infrastructure and expertise needed to become a leading digital hub on the continent. As dependence on data centres, cloud platforms and digital services continues to grow, resilience will become an increasingly important part of that success. Business leaders should ensure that governance, operational resilience and cybersecurity evolve alongside the infrastructure that is helping to shape South Africa's digital future.