Microsoft apparently has the “most comprehensive set” of solutions. Google offers “the most comprehensive and flexible solution”. But AWS, according to AWS, is “the only fully-featured, independently operated” solution.
It's a great time to be in the market for a sovereign cloud – as long as you are in Europe.
The hyperscalers are falling all over themselves to promise European countries cloud services that are legally and operationally localised, cushioned against external interference, and absolutely, totally, cross-their-hearts-and-hope-to-die safe from Donald Trump.
The Trump bit is implied, but pretty loudly so when the vendors start to talk about billing that never touches the US dollar and boards of directors where US citizens will always be in the minority.
Many countries beyond Europe also don't care much for Trump, but we have yet to see a herd of cloud vendors stampede to offer South Africa air-gapped solutions with local security response teams and routing that avoids crossing into US territory. Need a local cloud region in South Africa? Sure, not a problem. Need to be sure that the US government can't grab your data or shut you down even if it goes completely rogue? Yeah, good luck with that, try our European offering.
Where South African officials have any appreciation for the issue, the attitude seems to be some mixture of (a) SA is a big, important market, and the vendors will get around to it; (b) local providers can do anything hyperscalers can do; and (c) China something, something, something.
They see neither the threat nor the opportunity.
Meanwhile, the hyperscalers are doing bilateral deals to secure scarce chips and lock in preferential tariffs during the trade wars like the superpowers they are. They are also putting vast amounts of money into the ground (in places that are not South Africa), driven by geopolitics. The lopsided growth is pulling the centre of compute gravity north again, away from Africa, with all the implications that holds for future latency-sensitive AI applications.
But it is possible for South Africa to change the equation ever so slightly, and to secure just a sliver of all that new compute, by playing on the precedent Europe is establishing around sovereignty.
Despite its many very real problems, South Africa is in many respects a great place to plonk down huge data centres.
It is always worth repeating that, despite its many very real problems, South Africa is in many respects a great place to plonk down huge data centres. Land is cheap; telecoms and banking and shipping links are fast; technical skills can be found or lured; electricity can be cheap as long as you're making your own. Nail down the water – and assurances of a smooth policy ride – and you're good.
Now if only there were a reason to build sovereign data centres in South Africa. Say, oh, the medium-term projections that Africa will be the fastest growing economic region pretty soon.
No hyperscaler is going to build in Zimbabwe or Mali or South Sudan. And, let's face it, they're not going to believe any promises made by Zimbabwe or Mali or South Sudan either. But they'll talk to Nigeria, Kenya and Senegal, and they also wouldn't mind a de-risked solution to address the markets of the DRC and Angola and Guinea.
What happens, then, if the big players on the continent push through a continental free-trade area for data? What if everyone agrees to extend their borders to the edges of the continent for the purposes of future data sovereignty requirements across government and banking and AI?
That sort of collective buying will benefit South Africa more than any other country on the continent, hands down, but the other power players can hardly admit as much. And given the lessons in realpolitik the entire world has had recently, everyone may be up for getting what they can get, even if SA gets the most.
Push hard enough and you can get that treaty through the African Union in time to, just maybe, catch the last bits of the current investment wave.
The price will be the moniker South Africa has struggled to shake ever since its cellphone companies and retailers took their brands and business models north: neocolonialist.
This time it would be worse, with South Africa working as an agent for imperialist forces, actively trying to get the continent colonised by hyperscaler outposts. The politicians will take some convincing, maybe some token nod towards developing a homegrown hyperscaler.
Better that than going quietly into the new digital divide, though.
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