Digital infrastructure company Vertiv moves into new office in Lagos

Global provider of digital infrastructure and continuity solutions, Vertiv has finally opened a physical office and showroom in Nigeria. The new office, located in Lagos, brings the company’s total number of offices in Africa to five. This is coming after 21 years of operating in the country as the company launched its operations in the country in 2002.

Vertiv is a digital infrastructure provision company that specializes in designing, building and servicing essential technologies that enable companies and organisations that regularly deal with large amounts of data to effectively manage and optimize their digital operations.

The company provides a broad range of power, thermal and IT and edge infrastructure, solutions and services in three core areas: contributing to all levels of data centre requirements, from hyper scalers to micro data centre solutions, through its suite of offerings; communication networks with macro site central office, small cell and data centre offerings; and commercial and industrial services within the healthcare, manufacturing, rail/mass transit, power generation and oil and gas sectors.

Speaking on the need for its new office, Vertiv’s Managing Director for Africa, Wojtek Piorko told Technext that they are necessary for keeping close contact with their customers while growing their African network.

“We are establishing offices close to customers that incorporate Customer Experience Centres and Showrooms and growing our African network of authorized partners and service providers on both the sales and service sides. The initiative is aimed at addressing our African clients’ needs and we are doing this by creating a new internal structure that focuses strongly on leveraging local skills and knowledge within our team,” he said.

Speaking on why Vertiv considers Nigeria a major market for its services even though data centres aren’t that democratized in the country, he said the presence of big digital infrastructure companies like Equinix and NTT Data in Nigeria shows that there are big things already happening. He noted that Vertiv has already completed major projects for some of these big players and there are more coming.

“I was reading a report which says Africa as a whole currently has 300 megawatts of data centres. That represents the same number as it is in Italy. Italy has 40 million people, and Africa has 1.5 billion. Definitely, there will be growth. I understand that 70% of the population in Nigeria is below 30 years old. They will look for content. They will create content. They will become this digital generation and based on that, the future is bright.

Wojtek Piorko, Vertiv’s Managing Director for Africa

He also noted that as organisations increasingly rely on digital infrastructure, Vertiv plays a vital role in ensuring the uninterrupted operation of critical systems and applications. Furthermore, as data centre growth around Africa continues to rise, this means that Africa now plays a significant role in its global strategy.

See also: What Nigeria stands to gain as President commissions 2.2-petabyte tier-IV Data Center in Kano

According to a 2022 study released by Xalam Analytics, a digital infrastructure investment consultancy, the African data centre market has been showing a remarkable growth surge, becoming one of the world’s fastest-growing markets for commercial data centre deployments. The study, The African Data Centre Gigawatt, revealed that at least 70 new facilities were built in the five years between 2017 and 2022, with 2022 recording the highest yet.

African data centre providers have thus spent a cumulative $2 billion on these projects while adding more than 200MW of commercial IT load capacity to the African market. As a result, Africa’s commercial data hosting capacity has surged and is set to be doubling every year. And Wojtek believes Vertiv has an important role to play in future growth which is why it is establishing offices close to its African consumers.

“Africa’s growing digital economy must be supported by a robust data centre infrastructure in order to thrive. Vertiv is well-positioned to provide the foundational digital infrastructure needed for local telecommunication networks and commercial facilities to help drive digital transformation.

About Vertiv’s new Nigerian office

The new local facility will provide Nigerian customers and partners with first-hand experience in a range of Vertiv thermal management, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, and integrated cabinet solutions under real field conditions and in real-time, supported by expert engineering specialists.

These include, amongst others, the Vertiv SmartCabinet, a pre-configured, self-contained infrastructure solution that offers efficiency, economy, interoperability, and control; and the Vertiv Liebert EXS UPS, an optimised three-phase, high-efficiency power protection system with an integrated internal battery, maintenance bypass and optional receptacle distribution in a single package.

The Customer Showroom also features a virtual reality (VR) experience for visitors. Here, visitors using a VR headset and hand controllers are transported to a virtual environment where they can interact with equipment, watch animations that demonstrate how to maximise space and efficiencies within Vertiv products and examine the spatial placement of Vertiv’s rack and row solutions, as though the equipment is actually on site.

Additionally, the new centre will provide presales, sales and product training, as well as full-service certification courses for Vertiv’s authorised service partner network.

“Our new Nigerian office and Customer Showroom will allow Vertiv to place greater strategic focus on operations within the country as well as the broader Central African region, with a strong emphasis on the telecommunications and colocation sectors,” he adds. “We foresee exciting times ahead for Vertiv in Africa and will continue to work on developing our local team, expanding our network of authorised partners and service providers, and meeting the changing needs of our African clients,” Wojtek Piorko says.