Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. announced that it would build a data center in Johannesburg, South Africa, to offer its cloud services. Further details about this project revealed on October 10, 2018, by the company’s cloud business president Zheng Yelai during Huawei Connect 2018, should be provided during the AfricaCom 2018 which will be held from November 13 to 15 in Cape Town.

Zheng Yelai explained that once the construction is completed, "we are comfortable that we can provide the most advanced cloud AI and big data solutions to government institutions, enterprises and consumers in South Africa, and its neighbouring countries". With this investment in South Africa, Huawei intends to fulfill its ambition which is to become one of the world’s top five cloud services providers, as announced during the Huawei Connect 2017.

Let’s note that it is not the only company wishing to transform cloud services into a real business opportunity in South Africa. Amazon Web Services has already announced the construction of data centers in the country. These centers should be operational by 2020. Microsoft also announced the construction of two Azure data centers based in Cape Town and Johannesburg.