CAIRO: On Tuesday, Egypt's Raya Holding company announced it was developing a second data center in the country for GPX Global Systems Inc. The center will help provide Internet Exchanges and data centers for companies in the region, a statement from the company said. It comes as Egypt continues to buttress its broadband and information technology infrastructure as a means of attracting a wider range of foreign technology-related firms. Already, Cairo is a top 10 city in terms of call centers, with Microsoft leading the foreign investors in the Smart Village, some 30 minutes outside Cairo. Their XBox service is done from Cairo due to the low costs of labor in the country. The new GPX data center will be built just outside the capital and will allow companies to switch between Internet providers if one service is disrupted in order to maintain the flow of business, Reuters news agency reported on Tuesday. “If you're trading, you want to have a network that's resilient,” GPX's President Nick Tanzi was quoted by the news agency as saying. “You can't stop trading, so we offer a place to put back-up computers and servers.” According to Raya's press and communications office, the new center will cost between $25-$36 million dollars. Raya, which sells mobile handsets, runs call centers and provides outsourced IT services, will build the facility that is set to house the center. BM
