Google’s official launch of its Africa cloud region will take place in March this year, highlighting opportunities for partners and customers across the SADC region. Gregory MacLennan, CEO of Digicloud Africa, Google’s chosen reseller enablement partner in Africa, says customer demand and the Digicloud reseller network have grown strongly since 2022, when Google first announced plans to open a Johannesburg cloud region. He notes a trend whereby customers across Africa are a key force driving resellers to join the Digicloud partner network – which he expects to accelerate with the official launch of the Africa cloud region.
The new local region is part of Google’s commitment to invest $1 billion in digital development in Africa, he says.
“With the local data centre in Johannesburg, heavily regulated institutions like banks, which are obliged to have information held in-country, can do AI and machine learning projects in the region. The Africa region availability also addresses concerns for businesses where low latency is a priority,” MacLennan says.
MacLennan says the Google Africa data centre offers solutions carefully selected to address top local priorities: “For example, it has BigQuery, which is the single biggest market need, and most of the services that have been included are centred on data. Google is a leader in data and analytics and has made massive investments on the AI front.
Given that data analytics, machine learning and generative AI are what everyone's talking about in markets across Africa, Google is launching at the right time to ensure that customers who want to build out their AI models using Google's advanced technology are able to do that in the South African data centre.”
He adds: “From a customer perspective, there is also the benefit of access to a fast-growing ecosystem of partners. Digicloud now has 86 partners in South Africa and 160 partners in total across Africa that are able to help their businesses with data, AI, Google Workspace and infrastructure. In just two years, the ecosystem has grown massively, and it is still growing. We’re actively enabling partners across the continent.
“As a customer, if you want to move to Google Cloud, now's the time. And if you're a reseller specialising in AI or data analytics, now's the time to sign up with Digicloud to benefit from the support of the local Google team and offer Google Cloud services to your customers on a market-leading platform within a local region.”
Ahead of the official launch on 19 March, Digicloud is set to launch campaigns to raise awareness of the local region, its benefits and new opportunities for partners and customers.
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