As the saying goes rather be late than not showing up at all. Google announced the launch of cloud business in South Africa, its first in the African region. The tech giant follows the likes of Amazon Web Services [AWS], Microsoft Azure and Alibaba with Alibaba Cloud which launched recently in partnership with Telkom’s BCX.
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.
“We are excited to announce the first Google Cloud region in Africa. The new region will allow for the localisation of applications and services,” said Google Cloud Africa director, Niral Patel.
“It will make it really 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.”
For Google to launch in the African region makes cloud services accessible to current and prospective clients for the tech giant.
“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,” adds Patel.
The move to establish cloud business in the continent has been on Google’s radar for a while, finally is taking place and they chose South Africa as the first country.