Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei has committed to strengthening its cloud network, unveiling a “Partner Programme 2.0 initiative”.
Huawei made the announcement during its cloud and artificial intelligence forum that took place on the side-lines of AfricaCom 2019 in Cape Town, saying the initiative aims to offer support to cloud partners in online and onsite training, market expansion, marketing activities and technical understanding.
South Africa has witnessed increased activity in the cloud space over the past year, with companies like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Huawei making significant inroads in the local cloud market.
Last year, Huawei revealed its cloud services will become officially available in SA, with plans to scale up based on the demand. The company’s cloud services were officially launched in the county this February.
Over the past eight months, Huawei Cloud has experienced rapid growth in the African market, notably in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Zambia, according to the company.
Furthermore, in Africa alone, Huawei Cloud has established partnerships with over 65 partners spanning diverse industries, including telecoms, finance, manufacturing, education, retail and logistics, as well as the public sector.
Rui Houwei, president of Huawei Cloud Africa, said: “Such wide-ranging collaboration is likely to result in unique and broadly-shared benefits across the ecosystem.”
The IDC expects SA’s spending in public cloud services to reach R11.5 billion in 2022, a three-fold increase from 2017. By 2020, cloud services will account for 67% of enterprises' total spending in IT infrastructure and software.
At the same event, Huawei unveiled the Kunpeng Elastic Cloud Server,which is expected to usher in Africa’s multi-architecture computing era.
The company plans to make Kunpeng-powered cloud services available to African customers by the end of December, offering 15% faster multi-core computing power and a 30% higher performance or price ratio than the industry average.
Houwei said: “The computing industry has gone through the mainframe computer, minicomputer and x86 server stages, and will move to the multi-architecture computing stage.
"The computing power previously available only in the x86 architecture is now available in different architectures, allowing for the use of appropriate computing power for each specific application.
"Huawei is able to innovate across the entire stack, ranging from chips and servers, to cloud platforms. In-depth collaboration between chips, hardware and software enable Kunpeng cloud services to deliver unparalleled performance. We are deeply committed to providing diversified cloud services and solutions, to help public institutions and private companies take intelligence and mobility to even greater heights. "
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