President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema officially unveiled Gabon’s inaugural data center yesterday, a landmark facility developed by ST Digital Data Center Services within the Nkok Special Economic Zone. This pivotal event also featured the formal signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Digital Economy, Digitalization, and Innovation and ST Digital, specifically designed to empower Gabonese startups.
This two-pronged initiative is strategically aimed at bolstering local data hosting capabilities, enhancing national cybersecurity, and accelerating the country’s digital transformation. Certified as Tier III, ensuring adherence to rigorous international standards, the state-of-the-art infrastructure is set to significantly upgrade national data storage capacities, facilitate robust cloud computing services, and provide crucial support to both government administrations and private enterprises. Ultimately, this move underscores the Head of State’s unwavering commitment to guiding Gabon towards a definitive and affirmed digital sovereignty.
The collaborative partnership is structured to provide Gabonese burgeoning startups with privileged access to a suite of professional digital services. Selected enterprises will receive 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 advantageous preferential rates.
The Ministry will play a crucial role in identifying eligible beneficiaries, actively promoting local data hosting solutions, and spearheading vital cybersecurity awareness campaigns. Laïka Mba, the Director-General of ST Digital, emphasized the profound significance, stating, ”Establishing a national data center in Gabon transcends a mere technological triumph; it represents a powerful act of sovereignty.” She further elaborated, ”It provides the sacred assurance that our state secrets, national archives, public services, and the sensitive data of our citizens are no longer reliant on foreign infrastructures.”
ST Digital will undertake the critical responsibility of ensuring robust data security and providing ongoing technical support. This strategic public-private cooperation is poised to foster the creation and hosting of innovative digital solutions entirely within Gabon, thereby cultivating a more conducive environment for technological innovation, job creation, and strategic investments across the nation.
