March 15, 2021
By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Pan-African telecoms giant, Liquid Intelligent Technologies formerly known as Liquid Telecom, is expanding its operations into Nigeria and across the West African sub-region, Nic Rudnick, Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) made this disclosure at a virtual media parley to highlight the business transformations of the company.
Rudnick said the company is seeking to accelerate digital transformation across Africa with its fibre network, “since putting our first fibre in the ground in 2009, our high-speed cross-border network has grown to over 73,000km of fibre. It is the continent’s largest independently owned network, offering connectivity to all the main subsea cable systems that link Africa to the rest of the world,” he noted.
The GCEO said the company has begun setting up what would be one of Nigeria’s largest data centres currently under construction and would be ready to commence operations in a few months. “We have been in Nigeria in a foremost substantive way, we have begun what will be one of Nigeria’s largest data centres; that is currently under construction, we would be ready for launch within a few months, we also have network both in Lagos and nationally in Nigeria and we are increasing the size of that network,” Rudnick said.
Rudnick disclosed Liquid Intelligent Technologies has being recruiting staff in preparation to rollout its Nigerian data centres in a few months time. “We have being recruiting a lot of staff there and the data centres as I said will go live within a few months , the network is ready for launch now and we will be expanding and adding on to that network over the next few months, I think you will be seeing more both on the data centre side and the cloud and technology services that we are providing their in the coming weeks and months,” he added.
This is coming on the heels of the appointment of Wole Abu as CEO for Liquid Intelligent Technologies Nigeria and its new Africa Data Centre (ADC), effective January 2021.
Liquid Intelligent Technologies is also opening data centers in both in Kenya, Cairo and would on Tuesday launch a 2,300 kilometres of digital fibre in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The firm has installed more than 70,000 kilometres of fibre across Africa and operates five data centres in South Africa, Kenya and Rwanda.
The company in a statement announced the rebrand to Liquid Intelligent Technologies highlights the organisation’s expansion of its Cloud business, Cyber Security services, and other technologies added to its existing telecoms and connectivity capability.
In February 2021, the pan-African telecoms giant raised $840 million in a bond and loans to refinance debt and expand further into the continent. ” We have had a very successful refinancing , bringing in some new funding to further advance the company, that happened two weeks ago and extraordinary response from the market,” Rudnick affirmed.
Liquid Intelligent Technologies will expand its Managed Services offerings to drive and ensure successful adoption of tools to re-imagine their customers’ businesses and how they work and connect. Whether they are focused on enabling collaboration or utilising the most advanced cloud applications, the statement said.
“As a Microsoft Gold Partner, Liquid Intelligent Technologies is redefining Network, Cloud and Cyber Security offerings through strategic partnerships with leading global players, bringing innovative business applications, intelligent cloud services and world-class security to the African continent.
With the future of network security-driven from the cloud, Liquid Intelligent Technologies’ recently launched its Cyber Security business unit, which uniquely delivers security at its core, protecting your business’s data throughout its lifecycle,” the company added.
“Our ongoing investment in our networks and data centres across Africa have uniquely positioned us to utilise our infrastructure to accelerate the availability of new intelligent technologies including the high computing power of the Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security to our customers. We are now excited to be executing our vision of bringing new technological opportunities to the market with a highly differentiated product set supported by our existing infrastructure and digital innovation, ” Rudnick added.
