NAIROBI, Kenya- Amazon Web Services (AWS) is doubling down on its commitment to Africa, announcing a significant expansion of its cloud and AI services across the continent.
Speaking at the 2024 AWS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, the tech giant revealed plans to invest an additional $1.7 billion by the end of 2029, building on its existing infrastructure to meet the growing demands of its customers.
AWS has already invested billions of shillings in Africa, and according to Chris Erasmus, Country General Manager for South Africa, the region is becoming increasingly vital for the company’s global strategy.
“The AWS community in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is thriving. We have thousands of AWS customers in SSA today, and we see this as an incredibly strategic area of growth for us,” Erasmus said during the summit.
He also highlighted that AWS has over 6,000 partners across the continent, all working together to build and deliver business value.
In South Africa alone, AWS has made substantial progress, particularly in the Cape Town region, where it offers over 160 access services. This expansion is part of AWS’s broader plan to ensure that businesses in Africa have the tools they need to innovate and grow.
As AWS celebrates 20 years in Africa, the company is not just looking to the future but also reflecting on its past achievements.
In 2019, AWS set a bold goal to power 100pc of its infrastructure with renewable energy by 2029. Impressively, they reached this target seven years ahead of schedule, thanks in part to the launch of a solar plant in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province.
The plant generates up to 28,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of renewable energy annually, equivalent to the electricity consumption of over 8,000 average South African homes.
Beyond sustainability, AWS is also making strides in artificial intelligence (AI).
At the summit, the company unveiled its latest advancements in Generative AI (GenAI), showcasing Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that provides access to foundation models from leading AI companies through a single application programming interface (API).
David Brown, Vice President of AWS Compute and Networking Services, emphasized that AWS is at the forefront of this technology, making it more accessible and easier to use for businesses across Africa.
“Generative AI gives us a whole new software component, the ability to reason, and it stands to completely revolutionize how we approach some of the world’s largest challenges across nearly every industry,” Brown said.
He assured that AWS would continue to break through technology barriers, expanding its AI capabilities throughout Africa.
During the summit, AWS also highlighted several customer success stories, including those of Goldfields, JSE, and Adobe, demonstrating the transformative power of AWS cloud and AI technologies in the region.
