Google has launched its first African cloud region in Johannesburg, South Africa.
“Today, we’re announcing the Johannesburg cloud region in South Africa is ready for customer use,” the company said this week. “Businesses of all sizes across the continent now have access to high-performance, secure, and low-latency cloud services.”
Google first announced plans for a Google Cloud region in South Africa in October 2022.
This is the first GCP region launch of 2024. 2023 saw the search and cloud company launch regions in Berlin, Germany; Doha, Qatar; and Turin, Italy. The company's footprint totals 40 cloud regions and 121 zones globally.
Microsoft opened two Azure regions in South Africa in 2019, in Johannesburg and Cape Town, although the latter was closed in 2021. Meanwhile, AWS opened its own cloud region in the country in April 2020, launching in Cape Town. Oracle opened its Johannesburg OCI region in January 2022. Telkom subsidiary BCX last year launched an Alibaba cloud region in Johannesburg.
