SA CHOSEN TO HOST GOOGLE’S NEW CLOUD HUB

In a first for the African continent, South Africa has been chosen as the new home for Google’s new Cloud Hub.

The cloud service will launch with the African continent in mind and the infrastructure will be hosted locally.

Google Cloud is not entirely new to South Africa as the country’s biggest online retailer, Takealot’s e-commerce platform has been built on it.

The entire connection is being made possible by a cable. The Equinao cable arrived in Cape Town last month. It will connect the continent with Western Europe and is expected to improve internet connectivity speeds while reducing data costs – something that is already sky high in South Africa.

News24 reports that Google believes Africa’s digital economy has the potential to grow $180 billion by 2025 – 5.2% of the continent’s GDP.

In a recent move to rise above its competitors like Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, Google recently launched voice-typing support for a further nine African languages in Gboard, the Google keyboard.

These languages include Ndebele, Xhose, Kinyarwanda, Northern Sotho, Swati, Sesotho, Tswana, Venda and Tsonga.

Niral Patel, director of Google Cloud Africa, shared the company’s expansion.

“Along with the cloud region, we are expanding our network through the Equiano subsea cable and building dedicated cloud sites in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lagos and Nairobi. In doing so, we are building full-scale cloud capability for Africa.”

Image credit: Capacity Media