In a significant stride towards digital advancement, President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema officially opened Gabon’s inaugural data center yesterday within the Nkok Special Economic Zone. This state-of-the-art facility, developed by ST Digital Data Center Services, marks a pivotal moment for the nation’s technological landscape. The ceremony also featured the formal signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Digital Economy, Digitalization, and Innovation and ST Digital, designed to foster the growth of Gabonese startups.
This dual initiative is set to significantly enhance local data hosting capabilities, bolster cybersecurity measures, and accelerate the country’s overall digital transformation. Adhering to rigorous international benchmarks with its Tier III certification, this new infrastructure will expand national data storage capacities, facilitate cloud computing services, and provide crucial support to government agencies and private enterprises. Ultimately, it aims to fortify Gabon’s digital sovereignty. Through this strategic move, the head of state demonstrates a clear commitment to guiding Gabon towards a robust and independent digital future.
The collaborative agreement offers young Gabonese enterprises privileged access to professional digital services. Selected startups will benefit from a dedicated virtual machine, 120 GB of SSD storage, 8 GB of RAM, four virtual processors, a public IP address, an SSL certificate, comprehensive technical support, and preferential pricing structures.
The Ministry is tasked with identifying eligible beneficiaries, actively promoting local data hosting, and conducting public awareness campaigns on cybersecurity best practices. Laïka Mba, the General Director of ST Digital, emphasized the profound importance of this achievement, stating that “possessing a national data center in Gabon transcends a mere technological triumph; it represents an act of sovereignty.” She further articulated that this facility offers “the sacred assurance that our state secrets, national archives, public services, and citizen data will no longer be reliant on foreign infrastructure.”
ST Digital will be responsible for ensuring the utmost security of data and providing continuous technical assistance. This public-private partnership is expected to stimulate the creation and hosting of innovative digital solutions within Gabon, cultivating an environment more conducive to innovation, job creation, and strategic investments.
