Angola Cables has reportedly launched its third cloud node in Angola as an extension of its pan-African Clouds2Africa platform, along with a new programme to provide free cloud services for startups and local entrepreneurs.
Cloud Node Luanda-02, launched at an event last Friday, joins the existing Clouds2Africa nodes in Luanda and Sangano. Clouds2Africa also has nodes in South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania.
According to Angolan news portal PTI, Angola Cables said Luanda-02 is part of its strategy to boost data sovereignty in Angola by providing a competitive alternative to rivals like Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services.
“We work so that Angolan data, produced in Angola, remain in the country," said Angola Cables’ director of Innovation Júlio Chilela at a press conference.
Angola Cables CEO Ângelo Gama told Forbes Africa Lusofona that Clouds2Africa also offers “better cost calculation, payment in kwanzas and storage services, virtual machines and licenses suitable for the sustained growth of the business market, reducing the impacts of international payments and maintaining data backups in Angola.”
Along with the launch of Luanda-02, Angola Cables also announced a cloud voucher program called Acelera Clouds that enables startups and entrepreneurs to use Clouds2Africa for free for a limited period, the Forbes report added.
Gama said the programme will help lower the cost of accessing digital infrastructure, which is a key barrier to Angola’s startup market, which is key to the country’s digital transformation.
