![Menno Parsons, MD and founder of Master Power Technologies. [Image: Supplied]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/sw9lflF75eRiG9CQ0uG_ijL4T-GSevMoBIyxh5lhO4jjodXN_0V-cVx0h8crDAyciIrFtcyYLCvV_K_L_nKk1IUeOPcnW3-OLQo3)
Master Power Technologies (MPT) has opened a R50 million customer experience centre in Midrand, positioning the facility as a testing and training environment aimed at improving how critical power and cooling systems are designed, validated and operated in African data centre environments.
The 6 000m² facility, which also houses MPT’s regional headquarters, includes a 2MVA UPS testing platform and a 400kW cooling systems test centre. The company says the centre allows customers and engineers to test equipment under controlled conditions rather than relying only on manufacturer specifications.
For Menno Parsons, founder and MD of MPT, the facility is less about showcasing equipment and more about addressing a credibility and skills gap in the industry.
“The issue in the industry is people say things, and they’re not validated. You need to be dealing with people who have experience and people who can handle these things, not just say they can,” he said.
Parsons said the centre is designed to help engineers understand how systems perform in practice, particularly in environments where power instability and operational challenges are common.
“It teaches people how to work with the issues that are in the grid. It gives people the knowledge to deal with problems properly, with verified knowledge,” he said.
The launch comes as SA’s data centre market expands, driven by cloud adoption, artificial intelligence workloads and increased demand for digital infrastructure. However, the sector's growth has also highlighted the need for specialised skills and infrastructure that can operate reliably under local conditions.
Parsons said Africa’s challenging operating environments require a different approach to infrastructure design.
“The rest of the world is very mature. They know a lot about data centres, but they don’t necessarily deal with the power failures, transient conditions and switching issues that we deal with here,” he said.
He believes solutions designed for African conditions need to account for factors such as unreliable power, logistics challenges and supply chain delays.
“Africa is not as easy as people try to make it. You need to design for those requirements. When you design well for Africa, your technical capability becomes more resilient,” he said.
Parsons questioned whether infrastructure standards developed for more predictable markets can always be applied directly to African conditions.
“We need to look at our designs to cater for real African needs. European solutions don’t always fit the chaos that we have here,” he said.
The centre also includes MPT’s Advanced Infrastructure Visual Analytics platform, which monitors infrastructure performance across more than 200 data centres in Africa.
![The R50 million investment is designed to showcase MPT’s engineering capabilities and provide a hands-on environment for customers, partners, and trainees. [Image: Supplied]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/eWyUf8dSBiDV_OKdfddGXcXWXXYdw6ezWC6dX0Hb22yP-lajGSHazWoOf0rMDsVP8s3JQDazalV4Vy5JOWrqV_uoW2N6TpilOno)
Parsons said the platform was developed before AI became a mainstream trend and has evolved into a system that provides monitoring, control and management capabilities.
The facility will also be used as a training platform for engineers entering the data centre industry. Parsons said one of the challenges facing the sector is the shortage of experienced technical people, despite SA having strong engineering talent.
“People come through university with theoretical understanding and maybe some practical understanding. I wish, when I was a young engineer, I could have come into an environment like this and actually worked on systems to understand what these things really do,” he said.
He added that creating more capable engineers could also create export opportunities for South African skills.
“If we can create a training regime and flood the market with capable people, we can export talent and make it a positive contributor to our ecosystem,” he said.
On the energy transition, Parsons said technologies such as renewable energy and batteries have a role to play, but cautioned against viewing battery storage as the only long-term answer for large-scale energy challenges. He said the future of energy infrastructure would require a broader rethink, including new approaches to generation and distribution.
“The experience centre represents a new chapter for Master Power Technologies," he said. "It’s about creating a space where customers can engage with our technology, see it in action and understand the depth of our capabilities.”
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