Diamniadio (Dakar) - Tuesday June 22, 2021 - The President of the Republic, Macky Sall, inaugurated the first Tier 3 level Datacenter in the State of Senegal. This ceremony focused on the theme of Digital Sovereignty was an opportunity to highlight all of the achievements of the program “ Smart Sénégal » whose implementation was entrusted to ADIE. President Sall also launched an appeal for the immediate repatriation to the new national Datacenter of Administration data hosted abroad or in local storage locations that do not comply with international standards.

 
The State of Senegal has invested in building the latest generation of digital infrastructure. Built as part of the program Smart Sénégal, the Diamniadio National Datacenter offers the levels of security, connectivity and hosting necessary to consolidate our digital sovereignty. “I wanted to personally chair this ceremony to mark the particular interest I place in this achievement of the Senegal Digital Strategy 2025,” declared President Macky Sall at the start of his speech.

This Datacenter, the foundation of Senegal's digital sovereignty, gave the Head of State the opportunity to magnify and galvanize local expertise by welcoming the contribution of young Senegalese engineers. “Our young engineers will continue to manage this national Datacenter, symbol of our digital sovereignty, with a view to stimulating a fertile digital economy that creates jobs,” promised President Macky Sall.

He also instructed the government and all state structures to now host all state data and platforms in this standard infrastructure and to proceed with the rapid migration of data hosted abroad. or elsewhere in the Administration in premises that do not comply with international standards. “From today with the commissioning of this Datacenter, I would no longer like to see other national companies develop their own datacenters, which will not reach this standard and it will be a big dispersion of resources and synergies” , insisted President Sall. 

The commissioning of the Diamniadio data center will establish the country's positioning as a regional technological hub. Indeed, according to the Director General of ADIE, the State of Senegal has, with the Diamniadio Datacenter, one of the largest data storage and hosting infrastructures in Africa. “This Datacenter is the driving force behind the digital transformation of Senegal: it is connected to the State optical fiber which links the national territory over 6 km but also to the submarine cable whose arrival is planned in end of 000 and which will strengthen our country's internet capacity with more than 2021 Gb/s expandable to 100 Tb/s; it promotes the operation of the Senegal Services one-stop shop present in all departments and where citizens can have access to all the administration services,” explained Cheikh Bakhoum. He also recalled the number of direct jobs (16) being recruited for the Senegal services spaces and Datacenter management as well as the 720 indirect jobs also favored by this infrastructure.

The security and reduction in the costs of hosting State data, but also those of private sector companies, particularly start-ups, are guarantees offered by the State which has developed, within the confines of this infrastructure, two spaces of 250 m² respectively for the administration and the national and international private sector. “Beyond the administration which is the main beneficiary of this Datacenter, I invite the national private sector and all the players in the digital ecosystem to take ownership of this modern technological infrastructure now,” added launched the Director General of ADIE.

During the guided tour of the premises and installations of the Datacenter, the Head of State also proceeded to the inauguration by videoconference with some governors, prefects, mayors, commanders, other sites of the program Smart Sénégal (Senegal Services Spaces, University Recording Studios, Smart Classrooms in middle and high schools as well as Defense and Security Forces Command Centers, etc.).

The President of the Republic finally announced during this ceremony the upcoming start, still within the framework of Chinese cooperation, of phase 2 of the program Smart Sénégal.  

As a reminder, the program which benefited from technical support from Huawei includes five components necessary for the digital transformation of the country: The arrival of an underwater cable to strengthen broadband, Konectel with wifi in major places public authorities in the country, Safe City with the deployment of surveillance cameras in large cities, Smart education aimed at supporting universities and other educational establishments; the Senegal Services spaces which are one-stop shops installed in 45 departments to bring citizens closer to their Administration.