South Africa becomes the first country in Africa to have a local data centre. Microsoft officially opened data centres in Cape Town and Johannesburg, ahead of Amazon. Microsoft says the data centres will provide South Africa with faster access to Azure Cloud.
One notable history is that this event marks the first time that Microsoft will be ahead of AWS among other tech giants. As announced in a blog post, the launch is a significant milestone for the tech giant as they become the first global provider to provide cloud services to the continent.
Microsoft has earlier missed its initial data and didn’t give a reason for not going live in 2018 as promised. Regardless of that miss, they remain first in launching data centres in Africa.
As a means to empower people and organisations across Africa, Microsoft says it’s working to support start-ups and NGOs in Africa that have the means to end significant challenges such as scarcity of water, economic decay, and environmental infrastructure. It said in a blog post:
“Africa has the potential to help lead the technology revolution; therefore, Microsoft is empowering organizations and people to drive economic development, inclusive growth, and digital transformation.”
Other benefits that come with the cloud innovation include the challenges with farming. Farming in Africa has suffered neglect for so long. There is so much that farmers can achieve with technology. For instance, a farmer’s knowledge and intuition about his farm can boost the farm’s productivity and reduce wastes resulting from ignorance.
Another benefit which cannot be ignored is the fact the technology will stimulate digital transformation in the continent. The acquisition of the cloud service will generate new job opportunities in South Africa and in extension will drive the country to build more digital businesses for the country and beyond.
Cybersecurity appears to be the core of technology now. With an increased data regulation and data protection, a local data centre with go a long way in helping businesses keep their data without the borders of their country.
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