Cassava lands Africa's first Azure ExpressRoute Metro nod

Cassava Technologies, through its subsidiary Africa Data Centres (ADC), has become the first entity in Africa to secure a Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Metro peering location. The designation applies to ADC’s JHB1 facility in Johannesburg, creating a second peering site within the city. This allows Microsoft Azure customers to route a single private connection through two distinct peering sites within the same metro area for built-in redundancy.

The infrastructure upgrade provides Cassava with a clear commercial avenue to bundle high-margin managed services with its core data centre capacity. Its cloud and cybersecurity arm, Liquid C2, will leverage the dual Johannesburg sites to deliver Secure CloudConnect. This fully managed service integrates private cloud connectivity directly with cybersecurity controls, simplifying the management of complex cloud environments for corporate clients.

For enterprises and financial institutions, the offering directly addresses mounting regulatory demands to strengthen operational resilience, business continuity planning and data protection. Mission-critical workloads require guaranteed uptime, and routing traffic through two separate metro sites mitigates the risk of service disruptions while reducing the burden on in-house IT teams.

The development also arrives as regional businesses accelerate their adoption of artificial intelligence, a shift that demands highly reliable digital infrastructure. “South Africa isn’t waiting for the AI era, it is helping to shape it, and that ambition rests on digital infrastructure the country can trust,” said Vukani Mngxati, chief executive officer of Microsoft South Africa. “With Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Metro now available in Johannesburg, organisations across South Africa gain a more resilient and secure path to the cloud for their most critical workloads.” He noted that trusted infrastructure enables businesses to innovate faster, compete globally and unlock broader economic opportunities.

Cassava executives framed the designation as a validation of both the company's strategy and the continent's maturing technological capabilities. “Being designated a Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Metro peering location is a defining moment for Africa Data Centres as well as for Africa’s digital infrastructure,” said Ziaad Suleman, senior vice president of Cassava Technologies South Africa and Botswana. He added that the milestone reflects “growing confidence in the continent’s ability to support the next generation of cloud and AI-driven services.”