Teraco CT1 Rondebosch
Also known as Teraco CT1, Teraco Cape Town 1, CT1 Rondebosch
- Status
- Expanding
- Location
- Cape Town, South Africa
- Operator
- Teraco
- IT load
- 3 MW running, 5 MW planned
- Timeline
- Not disclosed
- Last verified
Overview
The Daily Maverick article identifies a 60MW Cape Town expansion as Teraco's project and links to Teraco's CT1 Rondebosch announcement. Teraco's own announcement reports CT1 current critical IT load of 3MW and a further 2MW expansion, so the structured CT1 capacity fields use Teraco's company-official figures.
Cooling method, water demand, and AI-specific capacity remain unconfirmed in the reviewed sources.
Capacity
What IT load means- IT load — full buildout
- 5 MW
- Teraco reports CT1 will expand from 3MW by a further 2MW of critical IT load.
- confirmed Source [s1] Source [s2]
- Building area
- 3,500 m²
- Teraco reports 2,500 square meters of current data halls plus a 1,000 square meter expansion.
- confirmed Source [s2]
Power in context
5 MW of IT load is roughly the average demand of 14,500 South African households (at 250 kWh per month).
That is 0.3% of Cape Town's peak grid demand (1,676 MW).
It is 0.02% of South Africa's effective grid capacity (~30 GW available).
Comparable to a mid-size cloud data centre.
Infrastructure
Tier certification explained- AI cooling readiness
- Not assessed
Cooling adequacy for AI workloads has not been independently assessed for this facility.
AI racks draw around 100 kW each, about ten times a conventional rack, so rack-level liquid cooling is the key differentiator. Training versus inference
Power
PPAs and wheeling- Grid carbon intensity
- 900 g CO₂/kWh
- City of Cape Town large loads are ultimately Eskom-backed; grid-level figure, not facility-specific.
- estimated Source [s1]
Grid carbon in context
900 g CO₂/kWh: very high — coal-heavy grid. That is 2.1 times the global average of 436 g (IEA, 2022). For comparison, France is about 60, the UK about 175 and the US about 400.
Grid-level estimate. PPAs and on-site renewables may lower the effective footprint.
Water
Water stress explained- Water source
- Not disclosed
- Water stress (WRI)
- High
Governance
Data residency explained- Data residency
- Data physically resident in South Africa under POPIA jurisdiction
Workloads
Training versus inference- General cloud
- Colocation
Carrier-neutral colocation campus operated under the Teraco brand. Daily Maverick describes a 60MW Cape Town expansion by Teraco but does not confirm AI-specific workloads or GPU capacity.
Claims
How claims workClaims are contested or still-evolving assertions, kept apart from sourced facts. A disputed claim is not a confirmed fact.
Daily Maverick reports a 60MW Teraco expansion in Cape Town and links to the CT1 Rondebosch announcement. Teraco's own CT1 release reports 3MW current critical IT load plus a 2MW expansion, not 60MW at CT1. The structured capacity fields follow Teraco's company-official CT1 figures.
Sources
How sources are ranked- [s1] New data centres set to swallow 34% of Cape Town's current electricity supply, Daily Maverick
local journalism Retrieved 29 June 2026 Not yet archived
- [s2] Teraco announces CT1 data centre expansion in Rondebosch, Cape Town, Teraco
company official Retrieved 29 June 2026 Not yet archived
What these source types mean
- local journalism
- Local news outlets; variable editorial standards, used for leads and corroboration.
- company official
- Press releases, investor relations filings, and product pages from the operating company.