Google, an American multinational tech company, says it plans to establish a new cloud region in South Africa – its first on the continent.
The company announced this in a statement on Wednesday.
Cloud regions simply refer to specific geographical locations where public cloud resources are located.
Google said the new cloud region would help users, developers, businesses and educational institutions across Africa to move more information and tools online, improve access options for customers and in turn, create jobs.
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With the development, South Africa will be joining Google Cloud’s global network of 35 cloud regions and 106 zones worldwide.
According to research by AlphaBeta Economics commissioned by Google Cloud, the project will contribute more than a cumulative $2.1 billion to the South Africa ’s GDP, and support the creation of more than 40,000 jobs by 2030.
Niral Patel, director of Google Cloud Africa, emphasised the company’s belief in growing an open and healthy ecosystem of technology solutions to support Africa’s digital transformation goals which leads to more opportunities for businesses.
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“It is part of our company-wide ethos to respect the environment, which is why we operate the cleanest cloud in the industry, supporting sustainable digital transformation,” he added.
Patel also said Google was expanding its network through the Equiano subsea cable and building dedicated cloud interconnect sites in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lagos and Nairobi.
“In doing so, we are building full scale cloud capability for Africa,” he explained.
On navigation initiatives, Google said it has also refreshed street view in Kenya, South Africa, Senegal and Nigeria with nearly three hundred thousand kilometres of imagery, to make maps more useful.
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The company said this would help people virtually explore and navigate neighbourhoods on Google Maps.
It added that the service has been extended to Rwanda, meaning that street view is now available in 11 African countries.
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