As part of its commitment to open four connectivity hubs on the African continent, Google Cloud announced plans to establish a Digital Exchange Port in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, at the Google Cloud Summit in Johannesburg this week. The port will connect directly to the Umoja cable and will also connect to a new fiber-optic cable connecting South Africa to Visakhapatnam (Vizag) and Chennai in India.
The port’s new subsea route to India forms part of America-India Connect, Google’s US $15 billion, five-year India infrastructure initiative. For South Africa, this port means more reliable cloud services, and easier access to AI infrastructure that extends into the rest of the continent via the Johannesburg Cloud Region.
Google Cloud also announced that open its first applied AI lab in Africa. The lab will be located in Ghana at the Accra AI Community Centre. This lab will give researchers and businesses access to Google’s latest AI models, supporting startups across the continent.
“The AI opportunity for Africa is significant, and Google is committed to doing our part working with Africans to help Africa realize it. Building on our past commitments, we’re making new investments in critical areas: infrastructure, African-led innovation, and education and skill building. From a new Digital Exchange Port in the Eastern Cape to Africa’s first Applied AI lab, we’re harnessing technical progress and building partnerships to amplify and scale Africa’s incredible vibrancy, hustle, and innovation for the world,” James Manyika, Senior Vice President for Research, Labs, Technology & Society, Google, said in a press release.
The announcement of the Digital Exchange Port was lauded by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa who said that investments such as this are a vote of confidence in the country’s economic trajectory that will catalyze job creation, support SME growth, and enhance global competitiveness.
“Cloud and AI are reshaping the global landscape at a pace unprecedented in human history. As South Africa, we stand ready to harness these shifts to transform our economy and society,” Ramaphosa said in a keynote speech.
South Africa aims to modernize and transform a number of industries in the country including electricity, water, and digital communications. These efforts revolve around a multi-year, joint public sector initiative known as Operation Vulindlela. The second phase of this joint initiative has been marked by the launch of digital public services rather than investment into digital infrastructure such as data centers through which those services will run.
South Africa may be home to around 70 percent of Africa’s hyperscale data center capacity but it lags behind the rest of the world. A report compiled by the African Data Centres Association reveals that IT capacity per million people in South Africa amounts to 6.69 MW compared to 47.21 MW in the United Kingdom. As the country builds up capacity and explores AI data center projects, connectivity nodes such as the latest one in the Eastern Cape are vital for the country and local businesses looking to leverage AI and robust cloud services.