Southern Africa · Power-first · Fibre-connected
Zimbabwe. The site for the world's next data-center and compute region.
A greenfield, power-first hyperscale region at the geographic centre of Southern Africa. Multi-gigawatt renewable and gas power on a roadmap to 10 GW, dense regional fibre, a temperate free-cooling climate, low-cost buildable land, and a highly educated, English-fluent workforce.
An open invitation to the operators scaling into Africa
Built for hyperscalers and data-center operators such as Digital Realty, Equinix, Vantage Data Centers, and others evaluating African capacity.
These names identify the intended audience and prospective off-take partners. They do not imply an existing partnership or endorsement.
Why now
The AI build-out has made power, not latency, the deciding factor.
Single-site power requests have passed 300 MW
Operators are now shopping for campus-scale blocks of power, not racks. Sites that cannot offer hundreds of megawatts on a credible schedule are screened out early.
Power and cooling outrank latency
For training and large-scale compute, the deciding factors are available power, thermal headroom and time-to-energise rather than proximity to an end user.
Power-rich regions win on economics
Where generation, land and water sit together, the cost per megawatt delivered falls and the build schedule shortens. That is now the core of site selection.
Africa is structurally under-supplied
Demand and subsea-cable landings continue to rise across the continent while installed capacity remains thin, leaving a wide gap between the compute Africa needs and the compute it hosts.
Zimbabwe is the power-first greenfield answer: generation developed for the campus rather than inherited from a constrained grid.
The diligence checklist
What decides where a data-center region gets built.
Legal frameworks
Bankable rules and investment protection
Economic policy
Currency, contracting and repatriation
Location
Centre of Southern Africa, dense fibre
Talent
English-fluent, STEM-deep workforce
Energy
Multi-gigawatt, power-first roadmap
Land
Low-cost, buildable, at scale
Water and cooling
Closed-loop, very low water usage
Bankable rules
Enabling legal frameworks for infrastructure at scale.
Specific terms are confirmed with the authorities and counsel during structuring, not assumed. What follows is the framework operators work within.
ZIDA one-stop authority
The Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency acts as a single entry point for investment approvals, with statutory investment protection set out in its enabling legislation.
Special Economic Zone designation
SEZ status carries tax and duty incentives for qualifying infrastructure projects. Specific terms are project-specific and confirmed case by case.
Parallel licensing
Power generation, ICT and data-infrastructure licences are issued by separate regulators, which allows workstreams to run in parallel rather than in sequence.
Bilateral investment treaties
Zimbabwe is party to bilateral investment treaties that address investment protection alongside profit and capital repatriation.
Data-protection regime
A national data-protection framework is in force, which supports data-residency requirements and sovereign hosting arrangements.
Policy direction
Economic policy and recent stability, stated plainly.
Zimbabwe's macroeconomic reform is recent. We set out what has changed and leave the judgement to your own advisers.
ZiG currency and tighter monetary policy
The ZiG currency and an accompanying tightening of monetary policy were introduced in 2024. This is recent and ongoing rather than settled, and should be assessed as such.
Hard-currency contracting
USD-denominated contracting and SEZ structures are commonly used to handle hard-currency revenue and repatriation for large infrastructure projects.
Stated government priority
Energy, ICT and data-centre investment are stated national priorities, which shapes how these projects are received by the relevant authorities.
Centre of the region
At the crossroads of Southern Africa.
The crossroads of the region
Zimbabwe sits at the centre of Southern Africa and hosts road, rail, power interconnector and fibre corridors running between its neighbours.
A fibre heartland
Liquid Intelligent Networks, Africa's largest independent fibre operator, was founded in Zimbabwe and began its build-out here, anchoring connectivity onward to subsea landings on both coasts.
Highveld plateau, roughly 1,500 m
The elevation gives a temperate climate with substantial free-cooling hours, and low exposure to hurricanes, earthquakes and coastal flooding.
The people
A globally sought-after talent pool.
Cambridge O-level and A-level curriculum
Secondary education follows the Cambridge curriculum, giving qualifications that are read and understood by employers worldwide.
Highest English literacy in Africa
English is the working language across business, education and government, which removes the language friction of staffing an international operation.
A deep STEM pipeline
Universities and technical colleges supply technicians, engineers, operations staff and AI-data workers, with a large diaspora available to return for the right roles.
Power at gigawatt scale
A multi-gigawatt, power-first roadmap.
Solar
4 GW
Zimbabwe has among the world's best solar irradiation, with high sunshine hours and a dry, clear highveld climate. Tongai is developing up to 4 GW of solar capacity dedicated to campus load rather than sold into a constrained grid.
Gas
The Cabora Bassa basin at Muzarabani holds Zimbabwe's first commercial gas discovery and the first Triassic-aged hydrocarbon discovery in sub-Saharan Africa. The Mukuyu field sits roughly 300 km north-east of Harare and was declared by Invictus Energy together with Geo Associates and One Gas Resources.
Tongai's gas-supply MOU with One Gas Resources is expected to enable scale-up toward 10 GW of firmed capacity. That figure is Tongai's forward-looking plan rather than installed capacity today.
The phased roadmap
Phase 1 · Solar to 4 GW
40%
Phase 2 · Gas firming behind the meter
68%
Phase 3 · Toward 10 GW
100%
Captive behind-the-meter generation
Power is generated for the campus and delivered behind the meter, so availability and pricing are set by the project rather than by grid conditions.
Renewable-heavy mix with gas firming
Solar carries the bulk of the energy while gas provides firming and night-time load, giving a low-carbon profile with the reliability AI workloads require.
Buildable at scale
Abundant, low-cost, buildable land.
Large, flat parcels
Contiguous land close to generation and fibre routes, with the topography needed to lay out a campus without heavy earthworks.
SEZ-designated land
Parcels inside special economic zones bring the associated incentive and customs treatment for qualifying projects.
Secure long-term leasehold
Tenure is structured on long-term leases suited to the twenty-five year horizon of a hyperscale campus.
Room to phase
Sites are sized so that multi-hundred-megawatt campuses can be phased over time rather than fixed at first-day capacity.
Cooling, solved
Water where it matters, and cooling that barely needs it.
Regional water resources
The Zambezi and Kariba system, along with inland dams and groundwater, gives the region substantial water availability for the uses that genuinely require it.
Thermal Alpha
PUE < 1.05
QuadBox closed-loop direct liquid cooling runs at a PUE below 1.05 with very low water usage. Because it does not rely on evaporative cooling, the campus carries no meaningful exposure to water scarcity for thermal management.
Land fast, de-risked
One integrated platform to land capacity in Zimbabwe.
Five businesses under one owner, from the gas well and the solar field to the cold plate. The stack is what compresses time-to-power.
Tongai Energy
Generation developed for the campus: solar at scale with gas firming behind the meter.
Tongai Grid Co.
Transmission and interconnection that moves power from generation to the campus boundary.
Tongai Connect
OPGW dark fibre and regional backbone, lit on day one of campus handover.
Tongai Data Centres
Campus shell, land, security and stands from 10 MW to 500 MW on long-term lease.
Tongai Technology
QuadBox direct liquid cooling and compute, deployed on premise or consumed as a service.
Straight answers
The concerns operators raise, and how they are addressed.
Power reliability
Campuses are served by captive behind-the-meter generation developed for the site, so availability is not dependent on the national grid.
Currency and repatriation
Contracting is structured in USD within SEZ and treaty frameworks, with repatriation terms confirmed with the authorities and counsel during structuring.
Water
Closed-loop direct liquid cooling removes evaporative water draw, so the campus is not exposed to water scarcity for thermal management.
Connectivity
Dense regional fibre corridors and Tongai Connect's own OPGW backbone provide diverse paths onward to subsea landings on both coasts.
Skills
An English-fluent STEM workforce is recruited and trained locally, with expatriate and diaspora hires covering specialist roles during ramp-up.
Next step
Evaluate Zimbabwe for your next campus.
We will walk your team through power, land, connectivity, incentives and a phased time-to-power plan built around your capacity requirement.