Hyperscalers are changing the cloud game in Africa

In September 2021, Gartner’s Emerging Technologies analysis on cloud computing spend found 51% of respondents were concentrating their innovation investments into cloud computing. The same percentage also expected 2022 to deliver high levels of indust

ry disruption by 2022.

The firm recommended that leaders look for disruptive opportunities that fully realise the capabilities of cloud technologies. In 2022, the sentiment was echoed in a Gartner report underscoring the value of differentiation and disruption to ensure competitiveness on the local and global levels. 

Gartner believes cloud-native platforms are likely to become the foundation of 95% of digital initiatives in three years, and that cloud-native platform adoption is likely to translate into long-term sustainable business successes. Fast-forward to the forecast and trends of 2023 and Gartner predicts this will be the year of industry-specific cloud platforms and platform engineering to create sustainable and digitally intelligent solutions that tap into cloud functionality. 

In Africa, powered by the growing demand for digitalisation and economic growth and expansion, hyperscalers are providing organisations and entrepreneurs with fertile ground from which to grow local into global with solutions that define transformation and innovation. The markets of SA, Kenya and Nigeria have seen hyperscale investment thanks to increasing demand for cloud services and solutions. 

These hyperscalers are bringing compute infrastructure that provides enterprises with the capacity and elasticity required to scale up or down instantly. They have also developed industry-specific solutions, designed to address specific challenges within sectors and some of those that shape the African landscape.

After all, challenges across power, water and ageing infrastructure are a threat to enterprise stability and cohesion and hyperscale providers have had to embed this stability within their own offerings and functionality. This has been achieved by focusing on resilient solutions and partnering with local companies with a deep understanding of the country and its nuances.

For any solution to deliver what a local organisation needs, it has to understand the local market. This means aligning with a reputable partner that can ensure seamless access to local markets, while also helping international perspectives overcome local hurdles. The flip side is, of course, also true. The value that an internationally relevant hyperscale cloud partnership brings the enterprise is immeasurable. With the right cloud infrastructure and relationship in place, local companies are able to build on their digital foundations to reach global markets.

Then, of course, there are the two words every organisation yearns for: resilience and reliability. Local infrastructure and investment by hyperscalers into local solutions mean organisations gain access to resilient and reliable services that deliver in spite of infrastructure problems and poor service provision. Its reliability is delivered by differentiation and a stable infrastructure, and resilience is embedded at the core of hyperscaler capabilities and capacity.

BCX has collaborated with Alibaba to bring the hyperscale powerhouse into Africa. It’s a move that will not only provide rapid access to reliable data centre stability but also allow for companies to dip into the company’s offerings described by as a leader in the Forrester Wave Leader 2022 Public Cloud Container Platforms for companies looking for comprehensive cloud-native capabilities.

It’s the perfect time to build locally with international expertise and create an organisation that can effortlessly go global. 

About this author: Julian Liebenberg is chief of cloud platforms at BCX.

This article was sponsored by BCX.