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Google picks South Africa for its first cloud region in Africa

Tech giant Google recently announced the launch of a cloud region in South Africa.

By Staff

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To catch up to other leading providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, who made inroads into the continent a few years ago, the IT giant Google recently announced the creation of the launch of the first cloud region in South Africa.

In an effort to give its clients and partners in Africa access to full-scale cloud capabilities, Google stated that it is also constructing Dedicated Cloud Interconnect sites in Nairobi (Kenya), Lagos (Nigeria), Capetown (South Africa), and Johannesburg (South Africa). These sites connect users’ on-premises networks with Google’s grid.

Google plans to tap its private subsea cable, Equiano, which connects Africa and Europe, to power the sites. Equiano has been under development since 2019 and has so far made four landings in Togo, Namibia, Nigeria, and South Africa.

South Africa now joins Google’s global network of 35 cloud regions and 106 zones worldwide, and the announcement follows the recent preview launch of regions in Malaysia, Thailand, and New Zealand. Google Cloud regions allow users to deploy cloud resources from specific geographic locations, and access several services including cloud storage, compute engine, and key management systems.

Speaking more about this recent move, Google Cloud Africa director, Niral Patel expressed, “We are excited to announce the first Google Cloud region in Africa. The new region will allow for the localization of applications and services. It will make it easier for our customers and partners to quickly deploy solutions for their businesses, whereby they’re able to leverage our computer artificial intelligence or machine learning capabilities, and data analytics to make smarter business decisions as they go forward.” 

He added that the new region and interconnect sites will take its cloud computing services closer to its clients, allowing its customers to choose where to consume the products from.

Patel also stated, “What we’re doing here is giving customers and partners a choice on where they’d like to store their data and where they’d like to consume cloud services, especially in the context of data sovereignty. This allows customers to then store the data in the country should they choose to do so. I guess for me the most important element is that it gives customers the element of choice.” 

Users’ ability to choose where their data is stored is becoming more and more important as nations like Kenya establish privacy and data laws that force businesses to store their data within national boundaries and process it using servers with local hosting.

The decision to set up a region in South Africa was informed by the demand for cloud services and the market’s potential. Still, the company is looking to launch in more markets within the continent as demand for its products soars. Its early adopters include large enterprise companies and e-commerce firms like South Africa’s TakeAlot and Kenya’s Twiga.

According to a study by AlphaBeta Economics, which was commissioned by Google Cloud, the South African cloud region will assist the development of more than 40,000 jobs and over $2.1 billion in GDP by 2030.

According to Gartner data, the three largest public cloud storage providers worldwide are Google Cloud, Azure by Microsoft, and AWS. However, it is unclear why Google had not yet expanded into Africa until now.

With the advent of Google, South Africa is now home to four of the top cloud storage providers on the continent.


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