Grace Ashiru
Google has built a new cloud region in Cape Town, in the country of South Africa. This move aligns with the company’s mission of helping Africa flourish digitally.
Being the first of its kind in the area, Google joins companies like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure that have already made a name for themselves in the region.
Google now has 35 cloud regions and 106 zones worldwide, and South Africa is one of them. After the recent preview launch of areas in Malaysia, Thailand, and New Zealand, the news was made.
Google Cloud regions let users access services like cloud storage, the computing engine, and the key management system from specific geographic locations. Google is also building Dedicated Cloud Interconnect sites in Nairobi, Kenya; Lagos, Nigeria; and Capetown and Johannesburg, South Africa. These sites connect users’ on-premises networks to Google’s grid. This is part of Google’s plan to give its customers and African partners full-scale cloud capabilities.
The tech giant wants to power the sites with its private undersea cable, Equiano, which connects Africa and Europe. Since 2019, Equiano has been in the process of being developed, and it has so far landed in the countries of South Africa, Nigeria, Namibia, and Togo.
Google says that the new region and interconnect sites will bring its cloud services closer to its customers and give them more options for where to use them. Niral Patel, the director of Google Cloud Africa, pointed out: It gives us great pleasure to announce the launch of the very first Google Cloud region on the African continent. The new zone will make it possible to localize applications and services.
It will make it much easier for our customers and partners to implement solutions quickly for their businesses. They will be able to use our computer’s artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) and data analytics to make better business decisions in the future.
In the context of data sovereignty, we are offering customers and partners the opportunity to select the location at which they would like their data to be stored and the place at which they would like to use cloud services. Customers can store their data locally in the country as a result of this, should they so desire. The fact that it gives clients the ability to choose is perhaps the feature that stands out to me as the essential aspect.
The demand for cloud services and the region’s potential led Google Cloud to select South Africa as the location for its first launch in an African country. Google Cloud is still looking to debut in other African nations.
