US-based internet search giant Google says its imminent South African cloud region will be premised on sustainability, as part of its mission to power up its projects across the globe with carbon-neutral energy.
This was the word from Miguel Oliveira, enterprise sales leader for Google Cloud Africa, speaking during a round table discussion chaired by Matthew Burbidge, editor of ITWeb's Brainstorm magazine, at the ITWeb Cloud and Data Centre Summit 2022 held this week in Johannesburg.
Discussing Google’s multiple infrastructure investments on the African continent over the past few years, Oliveira outlined the technology giant’s commitment to become more relevant to African citizens, by unlocking new pathways for economic growth and narrowing the digital divide on a continent where only 39% of the population have internet access.
In September, the company first revealed its intent to establish a Google Cloud region in South Africa – its first on the continent. South Africa will join Google Cloud’s global network of 35 cloud regions and 106 zones worldwide.
Oliveira pointed out that Google Cloud launches cloud regions to be closer to where customers are, noting the company is “excited and humbled” about the cloud infrastructure region, which will be built in an environmentally-friendly manner.
Its latest data centres have been opened this year in Dallas, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Milan, Italy; and Madrid, Spain, among others.
“Our intention to build a data centre started over a year ago. We all know that these things do take time, but we sense the urgency in the demand for Google products in Africa, and I can guarantee everyone that the urgency is very real,” stated Oliveira.
“One of the cornerstones of Google’s ethos is that we do everything in a sustainable way and the cloud region will be sustainable too. Google has been carbon-neutral since 2007. We’ve set a goal to achieve net-zero emissions across all of our operations and value chain by 2030. So, this means our electricity needs and our cooling needs will all be done in a sustainable way. [The data centre is] well on the way and we are all very excited about that. When the time is right, we will make the announcements on the data centres.”
According to Google, the new cloud region will 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.
Google has set a target to operate its businesses across the globe, 24/7 on carbon-free energy by 2030.
As part of this goal, the internet giant says it intends having its data centres running almost entirely on carbon-free 'clean' electricity, with this mission already accomplished in some of its cloud regions across the globe.
In September 2021, Google partnered with Sustainable Energy for All and the United Nations to launch the 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact – a set of principles and actions that stakeholders across the energy ecosystem can take to adopt, enable and advance 24/7 carbon-free energy as a means to fully decarbonise electricity systems.
According to Oliveira, part of Google’s mission with the local cloud region will be to also help clients operate more sustainably and achieve their sustainability goals.
“Google Cloud wants to be fully comprehensive in meeting clients at their point of need. The world is shifting fundamentally and a lot of our clients today are digital start-ups and companies that have done phenomenal things with technology. Google Cloud is focused on encouraging clients to think about what they want to do with technology that will be different and set them apart from competitors,” he added.
Digital economy boom
According to Google, Africa’s internet economy has the potential to grow to $180 billion by 2025 – 5.2% of the continent’s GDP − and there remain immense opportunities to narrow the digital divide on the continent.
As part of taking advantage of these opportunities, last year Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced Google would invest $1 billion in Africa over the next five years, to support a range of initiatives, from improved connectivity to investment in start-ups, to help boost Africa’s digital transformation.
In September, Google officially unveiled its Equiano submarine internet cable. This investment is part of the $1 billion (R17 billion) commitment to Africa.
Announced in 2019, the subsea cable is expected to be a job creation machine, driven by the expansion of the region’s digital economy and peripheral sectors.
The cable, linking Africa and Europe, will dramatically improve connectivity and latency, and it is expected to deliver high-speed broadband, at 144-terabits per second. This is around 20 times the amount of the previous cable that served the region, according to a report commissioned by Google.
“Google has been around in Africa for many years, and our infrastructural investments form part of our mission to become more relevant to the African market. The Equiano cable is expected to deliver high-speed broadband, at 144-terabits per second, and is set to carry approximately 20 times more network capacity than the last cable built to serve this region. Just think for a second what impact that would have on accessibility to the internet, the cost of data and the role it will have on business innovation, YouTube start-ups and the cloud uptake on the continent.”
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