Zambia is embracing the fourth industrial revolution through the rollout of the “Smart Zambia” project, which is designed to attract manufacturers and to make it easier for business and citizens to communicate with government entities.
If the project succeeds in making Zambia more connected than the other countries in the region it could attract significant investment. A computer assembly plant as well as three data centres form part of the Zambian government’s rollout of its Smart Zambia project. Phase 1 – the opening of the first data centre in Lusaka – is already operational.
A backup data centre is co-located at the Roma switch office of Zamtel, the Zambian national telecommunications operator. There is a second backup data centre at the Zamtel Kitwe switch office. The government has identified the rollout of information technology as a catalyst to spur Zambia’s economic development into a middle-income country by 2030. Huawei Technologies, which built the data centre, will also develop Zambia’s national broadband system to improve public service delivery as part of the US$75- million first phase of the project.
Funding is being provided by the Chinese government through a concessional loan. According to the Zambia National Data Center (ZNDC) website, the state-owned entity sees its customers as government ministries and departments, stateowned enterprises, academia, banks and other financial institutions and international agencies.
Smart Zambia national coordinator Martin Mulenga is quoted as saying that the country will be saving over US$7 million a year on the printing of payslips for government employees. The total cost of implementing “Smart Zambia” is estimated at US$440 million.
The balance of US$365 is to be invested in a computer assembly plant on the same Lusaka site as the first data centre, the establishment of ICT training centres, and broadband deployment across the country through a network of over a thousand communications towers.
