Everyone wants data centre exposure, but few South African listed property investors can actually get it.
Most data centre operators have been taken private, and outside of the USA, Singapore, China and Australia there are not many listed companies, nor listed property companies data centre exposure in their portfolio.
For those interested in the South African market we've just published Golden Section Capital's Overview of Data Centres in South Africa, our bottom-up look at Africa's anchor market. A few things stood out.
This isn't conventional real estate. Data centres sell power, uptime and connectivity by the kilowatt, not space by the square metre. That single distinction reframes how the asset class should be valued.
South Africa dominates the continent. Well over half of Africa's installed capacity sits here, concentrated in Johannesburg and Cape Town, underpinned by deep fibre, financial-services demand and the only multi-region hyperscale presence on the continent. On our estimates: roughly 482MW operational, around R12.4bn of annual revenue, and an installed asset value near R151bn on a replacement-cost basis.
The value is in the asset base. Installed asset value dwarfs annual revenue by roughly ten times. This is very capital-intensive infrastructure where the worth sits in real estate, power, and water.
But it's a specialist's game. Demand is real yet narrow, concentrated, hyperscale-led, pre-let, and increasingly gated by grid power and water. The specialists already hold the relationships, the capital and the operating skill, and a single campus can dominate a listed balance sheet. For a listed property company the one defensible entry is a pre-let, single-asset powered or dark-shell lease on a long covenant, as Attacq and Vantage have done at Waterfall.
And a word on the headline numbers. We remain sceptical of the mega-announcements, the Cavaleros 560MW development claim and the reported 400MW South Korean Amanzimtoti project among them. No firm tenant, no timeline, figures that are constructed rather than confirmed.
Exact SA data is closely held; any single market figure is an estimate, and ours are derived and stress-tested, not asserted as fact.
The full deck attached. Comments and questions are welcome.
17 Jun 2026
South African Data Centre Overview 2026-06
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South African Data Centre Overview 2026-06
Vodacom Group Limited (VOD:JSE), 0 | MTN Group Limited (MTN:JSE), 0 | Telkom SA SOC Ltd. (TKG:JSE), 0 | EQUINIX (EQIX:NYSE), 0 | Digital Realty Trust (DLR:NYSE), 0
- Published:
17 Jun 2026 -
Author:
Garreth Elston -
Pages:
29 -
Everyone wants data centre exposure, but few South African listed property investors can actually get it.
Most data centre operators have been taken private, and outside of the USA, Singapore, China and Australia there are not many listed companies, nor listed property companies data centre exposure in their portfolio.
For those interested in the South African market we've just published Golden Section Capital's Overview of Data Centres in South Africa, our bottom-up look at Africa's anchor market. A few things stood out.
This isn't conventional real estate. Data centres sell power, uptime and connectivity by the kilowatt, not space by the square metre. That single distinction reframes how the asset class should be valued.
South Africa dominates the continent. Well over half of Africa's installed capacity sits here, concentrated in Johannesburg and Cape Town, underpinned by deep fibre, financial-services demand and the only multi-region hyperscale presence on the continent. On our estimates: roughly 482MW operational, around R12.4bn of annual revenue, and an installed asset value near R151bn on a replacement-cost basis.
The value is in the asset base. Installed asset value dwarfs annual revenue by roughly ten times. This is very capital-intensive infrastructure where the worth sits in real estate, power, and water.
But it's a specialist's game. Demand is real yet narrow, concentrated, hyperscale-led, pre-let, and increasingly gated by grid power and water. The specialists already hold the relationships, the capital and the operating skill, and a single campus can dominate a listed balance sheet. For a listed property company the one defensible entry is a pre-let, single-asset powered or dark-shell lease on a long covenant, as Attacq and Vantage have done at Waterfall.
And a word on the headline numbers. We remain sceptical of the mega-announcements, the Cavaleros 560MW development claim and the reported 400MW South Korean Amanzimtoti project among them. No firm tenant, no timeline, figures that are constructed rather than confirmed.
Exact SA data is closely held; any single market figure is an estimate, and ours are derived and stress-tested, not asserted as fact.
The full deck attached. Comments and questions are welcome.