Will giants Microsoft, Amazon and Huawei outpace African operators in race to dominate the Cloud?

摘要

The colossal South African city-state of Waterfall City,built from scratch in the early 2010s on a 2,200-hectaresite halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria tohouse a state-of the-art business hub, is to becomehome to "the continent's largest data centre". With thisentry onto the African market, the US firm Vantage DataCenters has opted for a sales pitch full of superlatives.Developed under the direction of the company's MiddleEast and Africa director, French entrepreneur AntoineBoniface, the 15 billion rand ($1bn) project comprises a80MW campus with three data centres spread across 12hectares. South Africa's Eskom is to provide power tothe energy-hungry site, though the reliability of electricityfrom the public utility's grid has been called into questionin recent years (AI, 28/10/21).