Alphabet IncGOOGGOOGLGoogle looks to set up an African cloud service as part of its $1 billion investment plan for the continent enabling users to store their data in the country.
Google intensified competition with Microsoft CorpMSFT and Amazon.com IncAMZNAmazon Web Services in Africa’s most developed economy by the move.
Google-based the cloud infrastructure in South Africa, but users will have the option of where to store their data, Bloomberg reports citing Google Cloud Africa director Niral Patel.
South Africa will join Google Cloud’s global network of 35 cloud regions and 106 zones worldwide.
Nigeria bars phone companies from sending government or customer information outside the country.
Google estimates that the South African cloud region could contribute more than $2.1 billion to the country’s economy and support the creation of more than 40,000 jobs by 2030.
Google acknowledged building out its African subsea cable and cloud interconnect sites in four cities, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Lagos, and Nairobi, to provide complete cloud capability for the continent.
In July, Microsoft rallied other big-name cloud-computing providers to urge the U.S. to spread its spending on such services widely.
Microsoft targeted Amazon’s dominance in such contracts by the move.
Amazon dominated the cloud-infrastructure industry with a 39% share of the 2021 global market, ahead of Microsoft in the second position with a 21% share.
Amazon’s cloud had a 47% share of the 2021 U.S. and Canada public-sector market orders, ahead of 28% for Microsoft.
Price Action: GOOG shares traded lower by 2.38% at $99.97 on the last check Wednesday.
