Burkina Faso will inaugurate two new mini data centers dedicated to public administration on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, marking a step in the country’s efforts to strengthen digital sovereignty.
Prime Minister Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo is set to officially commission the facilities, which are positioned as strategic national infrastructure designed to support government operations and improve services for citizens.
The data centers form part of Burkina Faso’s 12 flagship digital transformation projects and are closely linked to the government’s “zero external data” initiative. The policy aims to ensure that sensitive national data is hosted and managed entirely within Burkina Faso, reducing dependence on foreign hosting services and strengthening national resilience.
The facilities offer a combined storage capacity of about 3,000 terabytes, representing a tenfold increase over existing systems. They can support more than 7,000 virtual machines, enabling each ministry to host between 100 and 300 virtual servers for digital platform deployment. With the expansion, Burkina Faso is positioned among the top three countries in the sub-region for digital data storage capacity.
The project was developed at an estimated cost of 16 billion FCFA and is expected to generate savings of roughly 30 billion FCFA over five years, mainly by cutting costs associated with hosting government platforms abroad. The facilities will be operated by national technical teams, with the goal of strengthening local expertise and building long-term capacity.
The inauguration is described as an intermediate milestone toward the construction of a national Big Data Centre, which is intended to fully repatriate digital data currently hosted outside Burkina Faso by both public administration and the private sector.
