Amazon has revealed plans to launch its first data centre in South Africa, with three availability zones due to become operational in Cape Town during the first half of 2020.

Although the company has a lot of business in South Africa, including the development centre it set up in 2004, it’s never run a data centre from the country. The company explained the announcement has been driven by demand in the region, recognising the tech talent of South Africans, particularly those situated in Cape Town.

AWS said its new AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region will offer lower latency to local businesses – particularly those in sub-Saharan areas – so they are able to make use of data-intensive technologies such as AI, machine learning, IoT and mobile services.

Adding an extra region in Africa also means businesses are able to store information in a local facility, rather than crossing the borders. This will be particularly important for businesses wanting to comply with the upcoming Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).

“Having built the original version of Amazon EC2 in our Cape Town development center 14 years ago, and with thousands of African companies using AWS for years, we’ve been able to witness first-hand the technical talent and potential in Africa,” the company’s CEO Andy Jassy said. “Technology has the opportunity to transform lives and economies across Africa, and we’re excited about AWS and the Cloud being a meaningful part of that transformation.”

To support the cloud infrastructure, AWS has also built up local teams for businesses to communicate with, making the cloud procurement process and cloud management a whole lot easier for South African businesses.  Local account managers, customer services representatives, partner managers and solutions architects are all on hand to help companies pursuing digital transformation doctrines.