In September 2021, Gartner’s Emerging Technologies analysis on cloud computing spend found that 51% of respondents were concentrating their innovation investments into cloud computing and the same percentage also expected 2022 to deliver high levels of industry disruption. The firm recommended that leaders look for disruptive opportunities that fully realised the capabilities of cloud technologies. In 2022, the sentiment was again echoed in another Gartner report that underscored the value of differentiation and disruption to ensure competitiveness on the local and global levels.

Gartner believes that cloud-native platforms will likely become the foundation of 95% of digital initiatives in just three years, and that cloud-native platform adoption would likely translate into long-term sustainable business successes. Fast-forward to the predictions and trends of 2023 and Gartner has predicted that this will be the year of industry-specific cloud platforms and platform engineering to create sustainable and digitally intelligent solutions that fully tap into cloud functionality.

This is a sentiment echoed by investment in the African cloud arena. Here, powered by the growing demand of digitalisation and economic growth and expansion, hyperscalers are rising up to meet local demand. And they’re providing organisations and entrepreneurs with fertile ground from which to grow local into global with solutions that define transformation and innovation. The key markets of South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria have seen significant hyperscale investment thanks to rising demand for cloud services and solutions.

These hyperscalers are bringing with them immensely scalable compute infrastructure that provides enterprises with the compute capacity and elasticity that they need to scale up or down instantly. They have also developed solutions that are industry-specific and designed to address unique challenges within sectors and some of the unique challenges that shape the African landscape. After all, challenges across power, water and ageing infrastructure are a very real threat to enterprise stability and cohesion, and hyperscale providers have had to embed this stability within their own offerings and functionality. This has been achieved on two levels – by focusing on resilient solutions and by partnering with local companies that have an in-depth understanding of the country and its nuances.

The latter part of the conversation is key – for any solution to deliver what a local organisation needs, it has to understand the local market. This means aligning with a reputable partner that can ensure seamless access to local markets, while also helping international perspectives climb over local hurdles. The flip side is, of course, also true. The value that an internationally relevant hyperscale cloud partnership brings the enterprise is immeasurable. With the right cloud infrastructure and relationship in place, local companies are able to build on their digital foundations to reach into global markets.

Resilience and reliability

Then, of course, there are the two words that every organisation yearns for – resilience and reliability. Local infrastructure and investment by hyperscalers into local solutions means that organisations gain access to resilient and reliable services that deliver in spite of infrastructure problems and poor service provision. It’s reliability delivered by differentiation and stable infrastructure, and resilience embedded at the core of hyperscaler capabilities and capacity.

BCX has collaborated with Alibaba to bring the hyperscale powerhouse into Africa, a move that will not only provide rapid access to reliable and stable data centre infrastucture, but will allow for companies to dip into the company’s bouquet of offerings that were described by Forrester as leader in the Forrester Wave Leader 2022 Public Cloud Container Platforms for companies that seek comprehensive cloud-native capabilities. It is the perfect time to build local with international expertise and create an organisation that can effortlessly go global.