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Data & Trends

One Country, One Chokepoint: The Infrastructure Gap Undermining Africa's AI Ambitions

AI infrastructure in Africa is currently concentrated in South Africa - with the country hosting 24.5% of all data centres on the continent.

,   and  Farai Mudzingwa
1 min read

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Why is AI Infrastructure concentrated in South Africa - Not elsewhere?

Submarine cable convergence: South Africa sits at the landing point of SEACOM, WACS, ACE and EASSY cables, giving it unmatched international bandwidth. Lagos and Mombasa have partial access; most of the continent routes traffic through South Africa anyway, adding latency.

Hyperscaler bets: Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google Cloud all operate dedicated South Africa regions (Johannesburg/Cape Town). No other African country has more than one hyperscaler region. These decisions compound: once one commits, the others follow to avoid competitive disadvantage.

Grid reliability: Loadshedding notwithstanding, South Africa's power infrastructure remains more predictable than peers. Data centres require uninterrupted, high-density power; Nigeria's grid instability and Kenya's capacity constraints make underwriting that SLA difficult.

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