KENYA – Amazon, which operates Amazon Web Services-the biggest cloud computing platform in the world plans to set up an “edge location” in Nairobi
They have several data centres around the world but their presence in Africa has been largely small.
An edge location is a site that caches copies of content so that there will be faster delivery to users at a location.
President Uhuru Kenyatta met with executives of Amazon Web Services (AWS) led by Vice President Teresa Carlson. They informed the president that they have plans to set up an adge location.
The meeting was a follow up to a discussion the President had with the group when he made an official visit to Washington last year.
There are several benefits of setting up an edge location in Nairobi. It will be an easy and cost effective way to distribute data housed in Kenya to thousands of users with low latency and high data transfer speeds.
“I’m delighted to welcome AWS’s investment in Kenya. The launch of Amazon CloudFront will put us in the forefront of accelerated innovation – enabling startups, enterprises and our government agencies to focus on building the best user experience,” the President said.
Ms Carlson said that Amazon will also provide training in digital skills and help in creation of quality jobs for the youth in Kenya.
The AWS Global Infrastructure network spans 22 geographic regions and 69 availability zones.
They are planning 13 more availability zones and 4 more AWS regions. They plan to open an AWS Region in South Africa in the first half in 2020 which would serve Sub-Saharan Africa.
In Africa, there are only 2 edge locations: In Johannesburg and in Capetown. Nairobi will become the third city in Africa to have an AWS edge location.
Amazon.com, Inc., is an American multinational technology company based in Seattle, Washington, that focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence.
It is considered one of the Big Four technology companies along with Google, Apple, and Facebook.
Amazon Web Services is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis.
