Angonap Fortaleza is operating full-scale, the second Angola Cables data center and its first company in Brazil. Inaugurated on April 16th, and this business venture is considered one of the most important milestones for the Angolan company as well as for Ceará State putting the Northeastern region of Brazil on the international connectivity route map.
Businesspeople and governmental representatives from both countries were present at the inauguration. Angonap Fortaleza is the results of a 300 million dollar investment by the Angolan company operating two cable systems in the Ceará State capital city, Monet, connecting Fortaleza to the United States; and SACS, connecting Fortaleza to Luanda, in Angola.
Also read – the South Atlantic Ocean: a new route for underwater cables
António Nunes, the CEO of Angola Cables, points out that the underwater cable connection, especially SACS, provides Brazil, the possibility of connecting to other continents, such as Asia, avoiding the necessity of going through Europe or North America, for example.
“This data center makes it possible for the Brazilian content producer to close international business deals without leaving its home turf. For example, if a Brazilian game producer launches a game at this data center, people in Africa can play that game much more efficiently”, explained Nunes. He said to ATLANTICO, large-scale companies, such as portal Globo.com are already using the Angonap services.
Also read – Fortaleza receives first data center of Angola Cables in Brazil
José Carvalho da Rocha, the Angolan Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister, was also present at the ceremony who pointed out that the data center will make it possible for Angola and Brazil to become even closer. “Naturally, we intend to maximize negotiations on all scopes between both countries, and we intend to connect them through this structure,” he states.
The company established in Luanda in 2009, Angola Cables is a company specializing in operating underwater fiber-optic cables for transmitting voice data at the speed of light. The company began due to the intention of the Angolan government to place the country on the international telecommunication map and transform Angola into one of the communication hubs on the African continent.
CEARÁ AS AN INTERNATIONAL HUB
The data center is also part of the Ceará State plan in becoming a large international investment hub. Thus, Angonap joins forces with the airline and port hubs of Pecém to foreign investors.
The Pecém Industrial-Port Complex was founded in March 2002 and moved 7.2 million tons in 2018. There are 30 companies set up there – 17 are industrial – the complex is responsible for generating 50 thousand direct and indirect jobs.
Besides that, the work on expanding and modernizing the Fortaleza Airport has already completed 60% of its planned interventions. This work has already been underway for about one year; this worksite will increase the number from seven to fifteen departure and arrival points, thereby increasing the operating equipment capacity by over 100%. The expectation for the airport is to increase its capacity to handle 20 million passengers per year in the next ten years compared to seven million registered in 2018.
Camilo Santana, the Governor of Ceará, pointed out “Fortaleza is leading this initiative in Northeastern Brazil, transferring this concentration from the Southeastern region, especially São Paulo, and bringing our region into this great global connection.” During the inauguration ceremony of the equipment, he promised to foster and invest in academic preparation to attract professionals to this technological field.
“This new data center will introduce great possibilities to Ceará so that it can attract small, medium, and large companies to develop jointly with it. The data center will provide connectivity, and all that will facilitate companies to develop and thereby generate more jobs, money and using partnering the trend to make our entire economy grow and prosper”, added Delano Gadelha, the president of the Federation of Brazilian Associations of Information Technology in Ceará.
Roberto Cláudio Bezerra, who is the Fortaleza mayor, classified Angonap as the kickoff to make Fortaleza become a large-scale communication center. He even spoke about materializing his dream to make Fortaleza become a state-of-the-art technological center.
“We expect to attract companies to help Ceará State produce contents that will be dispatched right here and reach all Brazil and the world,” states Inácio Arruda, the head secretary of Science, Technology, and Higher Education of Ceará, who praised the work performed by Angola Cables.
There are 12 cables connected here – two of them are from Angola Cables. Thus Fortaleza is the second largest city in the world for underwater cables.