Returning to Johannesburg for its second edition on October 29, 2026, the summit unites operators, hyperscalers, and energy providers to tackle the power, cooling, and infrastructure demands powering Africa’s digital backbone.
The Data Centre Summit is officially returning for its second edition on October 29, 2026, co-located with the C&I Energy + Storage Summit at The Maslow Hotel in Johannesburg.
Following its successful debut alongside Enlit Africa in Cape Town, the upcoming event addresses a critical and immediate industry necessity: a dedicated platform linking the explosive growth of artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure with the power, cooling, financing, and sustainability challenges shaping data centre development across the African continent.
As digital demand surges, data centres are rapidly emerging as heavy industrial power consumers. The 2026 programme will examine this shift, exploring the coordinated actions required from operators, hyperscalers, utilities, independent power producers (IPPs), and investors to capture Africa’s share of global market demand.
Key operational and technical themes on the agenda include:
- The Cooling Evolution: Deep dives into the shift from traditional air cooling to high-efficiency liquid cooling as rack densities scale, alongside water availability and waste-heat reuse strategies.
- The South Africa Country Spotlight: Assessing the national wheeling landscape, grid congestion, regulatory changes, and investor sentiment impacting near-term project delivery.
- 24/7 Power Security: Exploring renewable energy blending, co-location, and emerging generation technologies to maintain constant uptime.
- Municipal Case Studies: Unpacking how cities like Cape Town—pioneering formal municipal data strategies—are balancing spatial planning and resource constraints against rapid hyperscale site approvals.
“The programme will examine why data centres are emerging as a new industrial powerhouse and what coordinated action is required from operators, hyperscalers, utilities, independent power producers and investors to capture Africa’s share of global demand.”
To help delegates turn concepts into bankable reality, parallel masterclasses will focus on practical data centre design tailored for African conditions. These sessions target project bankability, execution risk, grid instability, and blended-finance solutions to lower barriers for clean energy investment.
Organized by VUKA Group, the co-location with the C&I Energy + Storage Summit places data centre operators directly alongside the key energy providers, financiers, and technical partners critical to sustaining Africa’s digital future.
