Can Africa Scale Data Centers Without Wasting Power with Head of Data Enter, Mourad Younes | Schneider Electric

What are your thoughts? ***International Telecoms Week x Datacloud Africa 2026 Conference Podcast Edition*** **Head of Data Centre, MEA region, Mourad Younes -** Schneider Electric AI is changing data center design faster than most teams can rewrite their playbooks, and the pressure shows up everywhere: power demand, heat rejection, talent, timelines, and the gap between big visions and real execution. From ITW 2026, we sit down with Murat Yunes, Head of Data Center for Middle East and Africa at Schneider Electric, to get clear on what actually sits behind the buzzwords and what “AI-ready” means when you are accountable for real infrastructure. We talk about Schneider Electric’s role as a technology vendor and why data centers still come down to three fundamentals: power, building, and IT. Murat explains the idea of delivering solutions “from the grid to the chips and from the chips to the chillers,” plus the software layer that gives operators visibility across critical assets. Then we shift to what market acceleration does to people. We share how strong team structure, empowered regional leaders, and a learning culture reduce burnout in a demanding engineering environment. On the tech side, we get into high-density AI workloads, the move toward liquid cooling, and why the priority right now is getting the design and reference architecture right, not chasing cost debates in isolation. We also dig into power efficiency and resilience through better monitoring, digital twin visibility, and smarter decisions based on actual consumption. Finally, we zoom out to Africa’s huge potential, the strength of local engineering skill sets, and the pragmatic question that decides everything: what are the real needs, and how do we align the ecosystem to deliver? If you care about data center infrastructure, AI data centers, liquid cooling, power consumption, or scaling digital infrastructure in Africa, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review. What part of the ecosystem do you think needs to mature first? Credits Host:  - Stella Gichuhi Producer:  - James Njoroge Executive Producers: - Harry Hare - Agutu Dan