Amazon Web Services — Cape Town Africa Region (af-south-1)

Amazon Web Services launched its Africa Region (af-south-1) in Cape Town in April 2020, becoming the first major hyperscale cloud provider to operate a full region on the African continent. The region consists of three availability zones and is located in the Western Cape of South Africa.

The Cape Town region was selected for its reliable power infrastructure relative to much of sub-Saharan Africa, good internet connectivity through submarine cables (WACS, SAFE, ACE cables land in South Africa), and the presence of a sophisticated local technology sector. AWS committed to investing 15.6 billion South African rand (approximately $850 million) in the region over 15 years.

The region serves enterprises, governments, and startups across sub-Saharan Africa with low-latency cloud and AI services including SageMaker, Rekognition, Comprehend, and Amazon Bedrock. Cape Town and South Africa’s tech sector — centered around Johannesburg and Cape Town — are the primary customers, but the region also serves East African markets through AWS’s expanding network. South Africa’s ongoing electricity crisis (load shedding by Eskom) is a challenge that AWS has addressed through on-site generator backup capacity.