Today, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company, announced the opening of a new office in Johannesburg to support growing customer demand. The new office will support South Africa’s burgeoning cloud market, and provide a range of services to organisations of all sizes, including startups, enterprises, and public sector agencies to help them innovate, lower information technology (IT) costs, and accelerate migrations to the cloud.
The new office continues Amazon’s growing investment in South Africa. In 2004, AWS first established its presence in Cape Town, setting up a development centre to pioneer technologies focused on networking, next-generation software for customer support, and software programs used by AWS, among other technologies. In 2017, the Amazon global network expanded to Africa through AWS Direct Connect and, in 2018, AWS launched Amazon CloudFront locations in Johannesburg and Cape Town. In 2019, AWS created the R365 million AWS Equity Equivalent Investment Programme (AWS EEIP), which helps develop 100% black-owned South African small businesses in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector.
In 2020, Amazon further reinforced its commitment to Africa when it launched Africa (Cape Town) Region, the first AWS Infrastructure Region in South Africa. The AWS Region enables businesses and government organisations of all sizes to create remote working platforms, build cloud applications, and store their data locally, while reaching end users across Africa with even lower latency.
“Johannesburg offers an incredible talent pool of highly skilled and creative people. It is home to many notable South African enterprises leading the way in digital innovation as well as fast-growing startups,” said Chris Erasmus, Country Manager at AWS. “We have seen increased adoption of AWS technology in the country, which has fueled the need to service our customers from their centre of operations. The new office will support customers to innovate, lower their IT costs, and grow their organisations by leveraging the cloud. We look forward to fostering the country’s pioneering spirit alongside our customers by helping them accelerate their digital transformation and deliver innovative new products and services to the South African economic landscape.”
Tebogo Mokwena, Co-founder and CEO of Akiba Digital, a South African startup, welcomed the news of the new AWS office in Johannesburg. “We are pleased that AWS opened its latest office in Johannesburg. This announcement reaffirms the country’s position as an attractive place to invest, powered by a high volume of local, talented developers. It further accelerates our country’s digital transformation and inclusive financial services, which in turn drive growth. This is what Akiba Digital is solving with AWS, cloud-based financial services that foster participation in AWS startup programs.”
To learn about career opportunities with AWS in Johannesburg, visit aws.amazon.com/careers.
