The Data Centre Summit returns for its second edition on 29 October 2026 at the Maslow Hotel in Sandton, Johannesburg, co-located with the C&I Energy + Storage Summit. Organised by VUKA Group, the one-day programme runs under the banner “Africa’s Digital Backbone: powering a connected continent”. Delegate passes are sold through the C&I Energy + Storage Summit ticket page.
The first edition ran alongside Enlit Africa in Cape Town. Moving it to Johannesburg puts it next to the energy buyers, utilities and financiers the sector depends on, which is the organiser’s stated reason for the co-location.
Programme
VUKA Group has structured the day around four themes tracking the value chain from demand and regulation through to the power, water and capital that turn a project into an operating asset.
- The Macro Landscape and AI Goldrush. Africa’s position in the global demand surge, and closing what the organiser puts at a 20 GW infrastructure gap. Sessions cover grid upgrades, renewables, wastewater recycling at project scale, and the shift from offshore hosting to domestic builds.
- Sovereignty and Regional Focus. How tightening data localisation laws are pushing operators towards domestic capacity, the rise of private utility investment behind those builds, municipal resource loads, and a South Africa country spotlight.
- The Resource Nexus: Power, Water, Cooling. Nuclear against solar for always-on load, waste-heat reuse and water accountability, the transition from air to liquid cooling, and what H200-class chips and rising rack densities demand of design.
- Building the Future. Three deep-dive masterclasses: Financing the Backbone, Design for African Realities, and Green Energy Advancements.
A case study examines how Cape Town, which the organiser describes as the first African city to launch a formal data strategy, is balancing spatial planning and resource constraints against the rapid site approvals hyperscale growth demands.
Advisory board and speakers
- Bryce Allan, Head of Sustainability, Teraco Data Environments (advisory board)
- Musa Maluleke, Civil and Structural Engineer, Eskom Rotek Industries (advisory board)
- Shaun Versfeld, Associate Director, Mission Critical Facilities, Atana (speaker)
- Natasha Ramkirpal, Group Lead for Water Security, Coca-Cola Africa Beverages (speaker)
- Darshana Myronidis, Chief Sustainability Officer (advisory board)
The audience the organiser is targeting spans data centre operators and hyperscalers, cooling technology providers and EPCs, independent power producers, utilities and municipalities, commercial banks and development finance institutions, private equity and infrastructure investors, and large industrial energy users in mining and agro-processing.
Organiser framing
VUKA Group’s pitch is that a data centre is “an energy and water asset first”, and that Africa’s ability to capture a share of global AI demand rests less on digital ambition than on whether power, cooling and water can be secured at the sites where operators want to build.
The organiser puts the global demand jump it is sizing the opportunity against at 788 TWh. That figure, like the 20 GW gap, is VUKA Group’s own and is presented here as the programme’s framing rather than as a verified estimate.
Data Centre Summit 2026
The second edition of the Data Centre Summit runs on 29 October 2026 at the Maslow Hotel, Sandton, Johannesburg, co-located with the C&I Energy + Storage Summit. Organised by VUKA Group, the programme covers data centre power and cooling, water accountability, data sovereignty and localisation, and financing for African data centre projects.
Event Type: Event
Event Attendance Mode: OfflineEventAttendanceMode
Event Status: EventScheduled
Performer: Organization
Performer Name: VUKA Group
Performer URL: https://wearevuka.com/
Start Date: 2026-10-29 09:00
End Date: 2026-10-29 17:00
Ticket URL: https://wearevuka.com/energy/energy-storage-summit/ticket-options/
Currency: ZAR
Availability: InStock
Availability Starts: 2026-10-29T09:00:00
Leave a Reply