The leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices, Huawei, has opened its data centre, Huawei Cloud, in South Africa to provide cloud services in Africa.
Unveiling the Huawei Cloud South Africa region at the AfricaCom 2018, the tech firm said it will start providing cloud services from December 2018 thus allowing organizations operating inside South Africa and its neighbouring countries to access lower-latency, reliable, and secure cloud services, such as Elastic Cloud Server (ECS), Elastic Volume Service (EVS), and Object Storage Service (OBS).
Huawei Cloud also indicated a plan to unveil more new regions in Africa. It added that this business gesture makes the company the world’s first cloud service provider that operates a local data centre to provide cloud services in Africa.
Speaking at the event, the Director-General, National Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services, South Africa, Mr. Robert Nkuna said: “Huawei has been a great technology partner to our country and they have regularly brought cutting edge technologies to our shores.
“The launch of the Huawei Cloud Service is taking place in an exciting period in our country. For example, we are investing in skills development with numerous partners.
“We’ll engage Huawei to transfer cloud technology skills to SA and the continent. We are convinced that we can fast track our development if we work in partnership with other stakeholders.”
Also commenting, the President of Huawei Southern Africa Region, Li Peng, said: “Huawei has been operating in Africa for 20 years, contributing to social and economic development and enriching African people’s lives with its ICT solutions and services.
“We have in-depth understanding of African market and is capable of better meeting customers’ current and potential needs. South Africa is one of the most diverse and promising emerging markets globally with tremendous potential.
“With cloud services, we are aiming to unleash the latent capacity by introducing cloud computing, one of key engines that drive the growth in this era.”
In his remarks, the Vice President of Huawei Cloud Business Unit, Edward Deng, said: “With over 30 years of technical accumulation in ICT infrastructure and products, Huawei provides reliable, secure, and sustainable cloud services to customers worldwide.
“Looking forward, Huawei Cloud’s innovative technologies and services, such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence, will help African governments, carriers, and enterprises in a variety of industries such as finance, energy, agriculture, to leapfrog to a fully-connected, intelligent era.”
Also at the event, Huawei Cloud released the Africa Partnership Program with local channel partners, such as Altron, ATOS, BCX, Datacentrix, EOH, Gijima, StorTech, TCM, Tech Mahindra, T-systems and XON.
In additional, Huawei also launched InTouch Aggregator, a PaaS platform powered on Huawei Cloud, which helps connect carriers, open up telecom capabilities, enable OTT, and build up the cloud ecosystem.
The company, in a statement yesterday, said that Huawei Cloud and its partners’ global reach cover Southeast Asia, Europe, Latin America, Russia, Africa, and China, with 22 regions and 37 availability zones.
“A growing number of organizations, such as Groupe PSA, Santander Bank, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Falabella, and Andreani, have chosen Huawei Cloud and partners, thanks to their cutting-edge technologies and professional local technical support,” the statement added.
