Africa-Press – Eritrea. Google has announced the launch of a cloud region in South Africa, its first in the continent.
The tech giant is also building ‘dedicated cloud interconnect sites’ which link users on-premises networks with Google’s grid in Nairobi (Kenya), Lagos (Nigeria) and South Africa’s Capetown and Johannesburg.
This is part of its drive to provide full-scale cloud capabilities for its customers and partners in Africa, even as it plays catch-up with providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.
The announcement was made during the second Google for Africa event in Nairobi.
Last October at the first Google for Africa event, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a plan to invest $1 billion (Sh120.9 billion) over the next five years to support Africa’s digital transformation.
This investment focuses on enabling fast, affordable internet access for more Africans, and building helpful products supporting entrepreneurs and small businesses.
It also focuses on helping non-profits improve lives across Africa.
This is the latest example of how Google is delivering on its $ 1 billion investment commitment.
The new cloud region will help users, developers, businesses, and educational institutions across Africa to move more information and tools online.
It will also help them access options for customers and in turn create jobs.
“There are different investments happening across the continent. The cloud region is going to start in South Africa. Still, it is not going to be the only one,” Charles Murito, Google director of government affairs and public policy for Sub-saharan Africa said.
Along with the cloud region, Google is expanding its network through the Equiano subsea cable.
This cable system is the third private international cable owned by Google and the 14th subsea cable invested by the company.
Equiano connects Africa to Europe , running along the West coast of Africa.
It is an infrastructure that is based on space-division multiplexing (SDM) technology with 12 fiber pairs and a design capacity of 144Tbps, approximately 20 times more network capacity than the last cable built to serve this region.
Equiano subsea cable is an achieved milestone running through Nigeria, Namibia, Togo, and South Africa.
According to a Google report, Equiano will lead to the creation of 1.6 million jobs and it is predicted that data prices will drop between 16 and 21 per cent in the region.
It is expected to deliver faster, lower-cost internet to the continent by connecting Africa to Europe.
Google is also building dedicated cloud interconnect sites in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Lagos, and Nairobi.
Google Cloud Africa director Niral Patel said that this will build full-scale Cloud capability for Africa.
“We believe in growing an open and healthy ecosystem of technology solutions to support Africa’s digital transformation goals, which leads to more business opportunities,” Patel said.
The Cloud interconnect sites will enable customers and partners to own RAM through the Google Cloud region.
It allows for dedicated capacity and high availability to customers.
For example, customers can move their data in a far more effective, secure, and faster way as compared to how they did it before.
Google is already working with customers across the continent to help them solve critical business challenges, get online and access the benefits of digital technology.
Google Cloud works with TakeAlot (South Africa ) and Twiga Foods (Kenya) who leverage cloud services.
Twiga Foods is a technology-driven company addressing and improving food security in Africa.
Google Cloud has helped them connect 1,000 farmers to 140,000 vendors, deliver 12,000 orders everyday and store two million kilograms.
Google has also launched voice typing support for nine more African languages in G-board.
These are isiNdebele, isiXhosa, Kinyarwanda, Northern Sotho, Swati, Sesotho, Tswana, Tshivenda and Xistonga.
Another 24 new languages are now supported on Google Translate, including Lingala, which is used by more than 45 million people across Central Africa.
There are over 2,000 languages spread across Africa with less than one percent being represented online.
Google has also refreshed Street View in Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa.
With nearly 300,000 km of imagery, they were seeking to make Maps more useful.
This will help people virtually explore and navigate neighbourhoods on Google Maps.
Street View is now available in 11 African countries as they are also extending the service to Rwanda.
The tech firm is further set to launch its first product development centre in Africa, to be located in Nairobi.
The new product development centre will help create transformative products and services for people in Africa and around the world.
Visionary engineers, product managers, UX designers, and researchers will be hired to lay the foundation for significant growth in the coming years.
The centre is looking for talented, creative people who can help solve difficult and important technical challenges.
This involves improving the smartphone experience for people in Africa or building more reliable internet infrastructure.
It is envisioned that Africa’s internet economy has the potential to grow to $ 180 billion (Sh21.8 trillion) by 2025, 5.2 per cent of the continent’s GDP.
Meanwhile, Google continues to support small African businesses through the Hustle academy and Google Business Profiles.
It also helps job seekers learn the skills they need through Developer Scholarships and Career Certifications.
Google also announced the launch of Interview Warm-up.
This free feature seeks to help job seekers prepare for job interviews without time restrictions.
The feature is able to help one with new vocabulary so as to avoid repetition and even time management, in that it tells you if you are giving more information than is required.
Last year, 7,500 career scholarships were disbursed to help young people learn new skills and build their careers.
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