Amazon Web Services to open data centres in Cape Town in 2020

Tech entrepreneurs in Cape Town are set to benefit, with the announcement yesterday by cloud computing services provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) that it will open three data centres in Cape Town in the first half of 2020.

In a statement yesterday (25 October) the Amazon subsidiary said the data centres will enable the services’ customers to run workloads in South Africa and serve end-users across the continent with lower latency.

In addition, the infrastructure will enable more African organisations to leverage advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile services to drive innovation.

The announcement follows AWS’ opening of two Amazon CloudFront Edge locations in SA earlier this year

AWS also explained that its local customers will also be able to store their data in the country with the assurance that their content will not “move without (their) consent”.

Those that must comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act will have access to secure infrastructure that it AWS said meets “the most rigorous” international compliance standards.

The latest announcement follows the news that the company in July had opened an Amazon CloudFront Edge location — where data is cached to reduce the latency to the end users– in Cape Town following the establishment in June of a similar centre in Johannesburg.

In August, AWS regional manager for sub-Saharan Africa Geoff Brown told Ventureburn that African startups will benefit from AWS’ expansion in Cape Town as the company will provide hands-on developer labs and expert advice on technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), voice technologies and edge computing.

Read more: Local startups to benefit from AWS Cape Town expansion with expertise, services

Featured image: Love Cape Town via Facebook