Amazon To Launch New Local Zone In Kenya

Amazon Web Services has announced plans to launch an AWS Local Zone in Kenya.

The new AWS Local Zone in Kenya will join 16 existing AWS Local Zones across the United States and an additional 32 AWS Local Zones planned to launch in 26 countries around the world starting in 2022.

AWS Local Zones are a type of infrastructure deployment that places compute, storage, database, and other select AWS services near a large population and industry centres. This means AWS customers will benefit from faster and reliable connectivity. They will be able to run low-latency applications at the edge. AWS Local Zones deliver single-digit millisecond latency performance at the edge of the cloud to hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

Robin Njiru, Regional Lead, East, West, and Central Africa at Amazon Web Services said, “The new AWS Local Zone in Kenya is a continuation of our investment to support customers of all kinds and our commitment to accelerate innovation by bringing cloud infrastructure to more locations in the country. We know that delivering ultra-low latency applications for a seamless user experience matters in every business and industry, so we are excited to bring the edge of the cloud closer to more customers in Kenya to help meet their requirements. AWS Local Zones will empower more public and private organizations, innovative startups, and AWS partners to deliver a new generation of leading-edge, low-latency applications to end-users. Customers can take advantage of the cost savings, scalability, and high availability that AWS provides.”

Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of ICT, Innovation, and Youth Affairs, Joseph Mucheru said, “We are pleased to launch AWS Local Zone in Kenya. This announcement reaffirms our country’s position as an attractive place to invest, powered by a high volume of local talented developers. It will boost the adoption of advanced cloud-based technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Internet of Things while helping to ensure secure use across the Kenyan technology sector.”

Amazon will partner with Kenyan telco Safaricom to launch the AWS Local Zone.

Peter Ndegwa, CEO of Safaricom said, “We believe an AWS Local Zone will enable us to further enhance our cloud offerings, especially to our Enterprise and SME customers, and migrate more of our own services to the Cloud.  Customer obsession remains a key focus for Safaricom and with this local presence driven by our partnership with Amazon, we will now achieve increased speed, stability, reliability, and storage to support innovation and development of future-fit solutions.”

Last year, AWS announced that we will be expanding the local zones internationally across the world in Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and Australia.