Interview: Amazon Web Services, and how it got its start in South Africa

Loading player...
Amazon Web Services already has a team of 7 000 people in South Africa, most of them based in Cape Town, but the US cloud computing giant is not done hiring as it ramps up investment in the country.
That’s according to Clive Charlton, head of solution architecture for AWS in sub-Saharan Africa, who explains in the podcast why South Africa – and Cape Town specifically – were so attractive to the Seattle-headquartered leader in hyperscale cloud services originally and why it remains so.
In the podcast, Charlton talks about how Amazon built the elastic computing cloud, or EC2, in Cape Town and how this platform went on to become the underpinnings of what AWS is today.
He also explains why Amazon is moving into a new campus in Cape Town – the data centres won’t be coming along – and whether it has plans to establish offices and data centre infrastructure elsewhere in the country.
Don’t miss the discussion!
19 May 2021 English South Africa Technology · Business

Other recent episodes

TCS | Charge’s R1.8-billion bet on an off-grid EV future

South Africa has fewer than 400 public electric vehicle charging stations – up from zero just 15 years ago – and EV adoption remains stubbornly slow. Yet Charge, formerly known as Zero Carbon Charge, is betting big that a coast-to-coast network of off-grid, renewable-powered charging stations is exactly what’s needed…
18 May 37 min

TCS+ | The Up&Up Group on the hidden cost of AI

Companies large and small are pouring capital into AI projects, chasing the promise of efficiency, speed and scale. But as Jason Harrison, chief operating officer of The Up&Up Group, argues in this episode of TechCentral’s TCS+, the upfront price tag tells only a fraction of the story – and many…
13 May 46 min

TCS+ | The retirement decision most South Africans get wrong

What happens to your retirement savings when you leave an employer is one of the most consequential financial decisions most South Africans will make – and one of the most commonly mishandled. In this podcast conversation with Mpho Chitapi, 10X Investments senior investment consultant Michael Rossouw sets out what should…
6 May 55 min

TCS | The Cape Town start-up listening for TB with AI

AI Diagnostics, a Cape Town-based med-tech company that has built an AI-powered stethoscope designed to detect tuberculosis, recently raised R85-million in a pre-series-A funding round. In this episode of the TechCentral Show (TCS), Nkosinathi Ndlovu speaks to the company’s CEO, Braden van Breda, about the funding round and its mission…
4 May 36 min