Huawei launches Nigeria’s first hyperscale local cloud
By Eberechi Obinagwam
Huawei on Tuesday launched Nigeria’s first local cloud, 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 15ms. These centers offer data storage and compute resources tailored for 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 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.”
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Deputy Governor of Lagos State Dr Kadri Obafemi Hamzat 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 our daily lives, our industry and our economy for this country” Mr Lu added.
Huawei Nigeria CEO Chris Lu speaks at his opening speech
Emphasizing the significance of the first local cloud launch 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 better 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 large models among other products, and emphasized that for Nigeria, Huawei Local Cloud is not only a reliable digital infrastructure but also to help customers innovate their businesses.
Vice President of Huawei Cloud Sub-Sahara Africa Roc Bai introduces the latest technology at the summit
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 15ms, enhancing user experience even during traffic surges. Another success story highlights the service for Nigeria’s prominent local e-commerce company, which has significantly improved its 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 highlighted 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.
Managing Director of Huawei Cloud Nigeria Hugo Hu 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 center in Lagos and Abuja, has cooperated with 137 universities to build ICT Academy, where over 70,000 talent receive trainings in different areas of ICT.
Earlier in the year, Huawei Cloud launched its startup program for Nigeria where it announced a total of $10 million to support 100 start-ups for the next 2 years. Each startup stands to benefit a credit worth $150,000. The investment hoped to prioritize advancement of cloud platforms, talent development, as well as the sharing of business resources for many startups.
