AWS Investment In Africa To Reach $1.7B By 2029

Another AWS SA data center is not on the cards, but AWS’s commitment to investing in Africa will still continue.

The cloud technology business has committed to investing an additional R30.4B ($1.7B) in the development of infrastructure and cloud services on the African continent by 2029. This is above the R15.6B ($874.54M) that has already been invested since announcing the opening of its presence in Cape Town in 2018.

The announcement was made this week at the AWS Summit, held at the Sandton Convention Center, by the cloud technology company that opened its first office in South Africa 20 years ago.

The investment has included opening the Johannesburg office location in 2015, the Development Centre in Kenya in 2023, launching local zones in Nigeria and the opening of three availability zones in Cape Town in 2020.

“We see this accelerating drumbeat of investment on the continent as a strategic growth area for the business,” says Chris Erasmus, Country Manager, AWS South Africa.

In addition to infrastructure, AWS has been addressing programmes to create a positive societal impact namely renewable energy, responsible water usage, skills development and SME partner programmes.

In 2019, AWS committed to powering and/or matching 100 percent of its power usage by 2030. The 2022 opening of its 10-megawatt Solar plan in the Northern Cape placed this goal ahead of schedule with its generation of 28000 megawatt hours a year.

The business’ goal to be water positive by 2030 is making headway with 41 percent of this target having been met by the end of last year. “We are still making really good progress,” says Erasmus.

AWS’s commitment to providing free skills training to 29 million students by 2025 was met earlier this year with the figure having been reached earlier this year. The business is currently working on partnering with other companies such as financial institutions to extend its impact.

The $154.74B investment into its partner programme to develop SMES currently has 36 graduates, including Realtime Media, that is AWS’ first partner on the African continent to hold a media and entertainment competency.

The event attracted over 8000 visitors.