Huawei Cloud has expanded its presence in Africa with the addition of four new availability zones, three in Egypt and one in Nigeria. This expansion brings the total number of Huawei Cloud data centres in Africa to six. The move strategically addresses latency issues and ensures data sovereignty for customers, meeting the growing demand for secure, high-performance cloud computing services in Africa.
Africa Analysis forecasts the African cloud computing market to grow from R35 billion in 2023 to over R113 billion by 2028. Huawei Cloud is meeting this demand for secure, high-performance services.
The expansion of its cloud infrastructure underscores Huawei Cloud’s dedication to supporting businesses in Africa with best-in-class solutions. Steven Chen, Managing Director of Huawei Cloud South Africa, says: “Huawei Cloud will support businesses’ digital strategies with best-in-class services, enabling them to thrive in a competitive environment.”
As the third-largest cloud provider in South Africa, Huawei Cloud drives the country’s digital evolution. Its customer-focused model has fuelled 125% adoption growth in the past year.
Huawei Cloud’s Africa-wide expansion aligns with its broader strategy of delivering industry-specific solutions across finance, retail, telecommunications and healthcare. By leveraging advanced AI, big data analytics and machine learning capabilities, Huawei Cloud empowers businesses to drive efficiency and innovation.
Impact of availability zones in Egypt
Huawei Cloud's expansion into Egypt is a significant milestone as it's the first public cloud in the region. The Cairo Region will provide cloud capabilities and serve as a hub for North Africa.
Speaking at the Huawei Cloud Summit 2024, in Cairo, Egypt's Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Dr Amr Talaat, highlighted the growing importance of cloud computing in modern economies. “Cloud computing technologies have become a key pillar of the digital infrastructure in all developed countries. This enables government entities to optimise resources and ensure flexibility in computing demands,” he said.
Huawei’s contributions to Egypt’s digital economy was also acknowledged; this includes industry support, cultivating young digital talent and fulfilling corporate social responsibilities.
Additionally, Huawei Cloud introduced its Arabic Large Language Model (LLM) at the summit. The automatic speech recognition service, designed to support over 20 Arabic-speaking countries, boasts an impressive 96% accuracy rate.
Huawei Cloud will invest US$300 million over five years to enhance Egypt’s cloud services, supporting 200 software partners, 1 300 channel partners, and training 10 000 developers, aligning with Egypt Vision 2030.
Impact of availability zones in Nigeria
Huawei Cloud's Nigeria launch, West Africa's first local cloud, ensures 15-millisecond latency with tier 3+ data centres. Local data storage makes it easier for Nigerian enterprises to comply with local data sovereignty laws – a crucial requirement for industries such as fintech and government.
The launch event, themed: “Leap Now with a Better Cloud,” was held in Lagos and aligned with Nigeria’s Data Protection Commission (NDPC) objectives to limit cross-border data transfers. Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Dr Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, praised the initiative, stating: “It would largely help businesses and everyone, as it'll also enhance sovereignty. I encourage all to embrace these ideas as they set a transformative course for Lagos, Nigeria, and Africa at large.”
Chris Lu, CEO of Huawei Nigeria, reaffirmed the company’s commitment to Nigeria’s digital economy, emphasising that the new cloud region allows businesses to innovate in a secure and efficient environment. “With disruptive technology, we can transform the daily lives, industries and economy of Nigeria,” Lu said.
Huawei Cloud’s impact is already evident. OPay, Nigeria’s leading fintech company, has reduced transaction latency from 130 milliseconds to just 15 milliseconds, vastly improving user experience during peak times. A top e-commerce platform has also leveraged Huawei Cloud’s solutions to enhance operational efficiency significantly.
Roc Bai, Vice-President of Huawei Cloud sub-Saharan Africa, highlighted the company’s three-action plan for Nigeria: supporting 1 000 businesses in cloud adoption, partnering with 100 local firms and enabling 5 000 developers with Huawei’s open resources. Additionally, Huawei has invested heavily in talent development, training over 70 000 trainees who could become ICT professionals in Nigeria through its ICT Academy initiative.
Creating thriving digital industries
Leading local and regional enterprises choose Huawei Cloud as their digital transformation partner. From telecommunications to transportation and e-commerce, Huawei Cloud’s range of flexible and reliable services exceeds industry needs.
Numerous cloud partners at the summit attested to the impact these solutions have had on their businesses. The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa is one such partner who is working with Huawei to build a a smart railway system. Huawei Cloud has helped the company transition from virtualisation to a hybrid cloud platform, which reduces theft and increases operational efficiency by 80%.
Speaking at Huawei’s South Africa Cloud Summit in 2024, Sunil Nagar, Head of Operations at Standard Bank Insurance and Asset Management, said: “There is a close partnership between Standard Bank Group and Huawei, where we see huge value.” He added that data was the bridge between their technology and their business teams and that a unified cloud platform was essential to their operations.
Huawei Cloud's commitment to providing localised consulting and technical expertise ensures customers receive hands-on support throughout their digital transformation journey. This customer-centric approach has established Huawei Cloud as the go-to partner for enterprises navigating complex digital projects.
“With the rapid digitalisation of industries and the surge in AI-driven innovation, businesses need cloud solutions that are not only scalable but also secure and cost-effective,” adds Chen. “Huawei Cloud remains committed to helping African businesses unlock their full potential through our robust infrastructure and cutting-edge technologies.”
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Huawei
Founded in 1987, Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT)infrastructure and smart devices. We have approximately 207,000 employees and we operate in over 170 countries and regions, serving more than three billion people around the world. We are committed to bringing digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.
Huawei Cloud
Human society is moving faster towards an intelligent world. Innovative ecosystems underpinned by cloud and innovative technologies represented by foundation models are reshaping industries at speeds unseen before, generating new momentum for building an inclusive, accessible, and resilient digital world.
Huawei Cloud has become one of the world's fastest-growing major cloud vendors. It opens Huawei's more than 30 years of technical prowess and product solutions in ICT. With Infrastructure as a Service, Technology as a Service, and Expertise as a Service, Huawei Cloud is committed to providing Everything as a Service to deliver reliable, secure, trustworthy, and sustainable cloud services for customers, partners, and developers. In the intelligent world, Huawei Cloud strives to serve as the cloud foundation and enabler of industry digitalization, as well as to accelerate the intelligent transformation of industries and provide the fertile soil for a flourishing ecosystem.
Infrastructure as a Service for global accessibility to the global network: KooVerse is Huawei Cloud's global infrastructure of storage, compute, and networking resources with a unified architecture and consistent experience. By October 15, 2024, KooVerse consists of 93 availability zones (AZs) in 33 Regions, serving customers in more than 170 countries and regions.
Technology as a Service for easier innovation and application modernization: Huawei employs more than 100,000 R&D engineers and spends tens of billion dollars on R&D annually. The fruits of Huawei's R&D efforts in cloud native, data intelligence, audio & video, and collaborative office are available to customers, partners, and developers in the form of cloud services. Huawei Cloud has built pipelines for digital content production (MetaStudio), AI development (ModelArts), software development (CodeArts), hardware development (CraftArts), and data governance (DataArts), enabling industries to create larger value on the cloud.
Expertise as a Service for shared excellence and cloud-enabled industries. Huawei Cloud MacroVerse aPaaS opens up Huawei's years of innovation and digitalization experience as callable APIs. Developers can focus on scenario-specific innovation and no longer need to reinvent the wheel.
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