Huawei Launches Nigeria's First Hyperscale Local Cloud
Dec 12, 2024
[Lagos, Nigeria , December 10, 2024] Huawei launched Nigeria's first local cloud on Tuesday, becoming the pioneering international cloud vendor to offer local cloud services in the country. Utilizing Tier 3+ data centers, Huawei Cloud provides the fastest services in Nigeria with a latency of just 15 ms. These centers offer data storage and compute resources tailored to local businesses and sectors, ensuring that all data remains within Nigeria.
The launch ceremony of Huawei local cloud in Nigeria
The launch event themed "Leap Now With A Better Cloud" held in Lagos is a significant milestone towards meeting the country's data protection regulation, and an alignment with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) objectives to limit cross-border data transfer and have data kept within the country.
This local cloud is set to help Nigeria protect data sovereignty, and ensure business compliance with Data Protection Regulations. Also, fintech companies, which require strict adherence to data protection laws, would benefit from it. The Nigeria local cloud will deliver Huawei Cloud's intelligent and innovative capabilities and serve as a hub for countries in West Africa.
Speaking at the launch event, the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Dr Kadri Obafemi Hamzat stated in his remark that "Lagos State has been working with Huawei for a while and today's event reaches its zenith with the launch of the Huawei Local Cloud. This marks a significant milestone for Nigeria in our journey towards technology advancement. The introduction of a local cloud by Huawei is a huge deal because it would largely help businesses and everyone, as It'll also enhance sovereignty. I encourage all to embrace these ideas as they set a transformative course for Lagos, Nigeria, and Africa at large."
Dr Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, Deputy Governor of Lagos State, speaks at the summit
Regarding Huawei's strategy for Nigeria's digital transformation, the CEO of Huawei Nigeria, Chris Lu, stressed the company's commitment to fostering Nigeria's digital economy through innovative and reliable solutions, noting that the local cloud in Nigeria offers businesses across the country an opportunity to thrive in a secure and efficient digital environment. "With disruptive technology, we can transform the daily lives, industry, and economy for this country," Mr. Lu added.
Chris Lu, Huawei Nigeria CEO, speaks at his opening speech
Emphasizing the significance of the first local cloud in Nigeria, Chris noted that "not knowing where your data is stored is terrifying. The Huawei local cloud provides a world where your data and that of your customers are safely protected. For Huawei, it's important that we build in Nigeria because we have been working with our local partners who are great in developing applications and services for various industries and consumers. So, it became imperative to serve them with a local cloud which helps us provide lower latency and better services to our customers so that they feel confident and secure while ensuring the data sovereignty of their customers."
Furthering the discourse on Huawei's latest technology for Nigeria, the Vice President of Huawei Cloud Sub-Sahara Africa Roc Bai said, "We believe local cloud is the best practice architecture for digital transformation today. Digital transformation is a complex systematic project, and enterprises need to respond to industry transformation and upgrading challenges with systematic thinking and innovative architectures."
Roc introduced Huawei Cloud Stack 8.5, cloud-native databases, Pangu models, among other products, and emphasized that for Nigeria, Huawei Local Cloud is not only reliable digital infrastructure but also a catalyst for customers to innovate their businesses.
Roc Bai, Vice President of Huawei Cloud Sub-Sahara Africa, introduces the latest technology
The summit also highlights Huawei Cloud's crucial support for leading tech companies in Nigeria. For instance, OPay, Nigeria's top fintech company, has successfully reduced transaction latency from 130 ms to 15 ms, enhancing user experience even during traffic surges. Another success story features Nigeria's prominent local e-commerce company, which has significantly improved their operational efficiency through Huawei Cloud's innovative solutions.
Hugo Hu, Managing Director of Huawei Cloud Nigeria, emphasized the importance of nurturing the local ecosystem. He underlined Huawei Cloud's commitment to bringing its global ecosystem and digital expertise to Nigeria, empowering local customers and partners to innovate and expand internationally. Hugo also announced the launch of the three-action plan: facilitating cloud adoption for 1,000 customers, supporting 100 partners in their growth, and enabling 5,000 developers with access to Huawei's open resources.
Hugo Hu, Managing Director of Huawei Cloud Nigeria, speaks at the summit
Touching on the cultivation of a thriving local ecosystem and training talent, Huawei has significantly contributed to talent training over the past 25 years. The company has built two training centers in Lagos and Abuja, and cooperated with 137 universities to build ICT Academy, where over 70,000 trainees grow into technologists in different ICT fields.
Earlier in the year, Huawei Cloud launched its startup program for Nigeria where it announced a total of USD10 million to support 100 startups, each eligible for up to USD150,000, for the next 2 years, aiming to prioritize advancement of cloud platforms, talent development, as well as the sharing of business resources across startups.