The era of cloud colonialism in Latin America has begun
Source: (
https://bit.ly/3WtSnDb)
When the major cloud providers warned of slowing customer
demand earlier this quarter, many expected them to pull back
on their capex expenditures until the latest macroeconomic
headwinds had blown over. Only, they didn't.
Week after week, the major cloud providers have pushed ahead.
They've announced new capacity, availability zones, and regions
across Central and South America and sub-Saharan Africa - all
markets that have undergone an explosion of demand for cloud
services over the past two years.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google
Cloud overwhelmingly dominate the US and European markets
- and if they have their way, they'll control an even larger stake
in these emerging markets too.
For a cloud region to be viable, there needs to be a critical mass
of businesses and customers with ready access to the internet. Over
the past several years, cloud providers like Microsoft and Google
have gone to great lengths to create and cultivate that demand.
Microsoft's Airband initiative is a prime example. The program,
which works with local ISPs and satellite internet providers, seeks
to bring internet service to a quarter of a billion underserved
people around the globe by 2025.
The latest phase of the program, announced this week, focuses on
closing the digital divide across large swaths of Africa. Just 40
percent of the continent's 1.4 billion people have access to the
internet, and more than 600 million live without power, according
to the International Telecommunication Union and the International
Energy Agency. Microsoft aims to bring internet service to 100
million Africans within the next three years and is working with
Viasat to reach some of the most remote residents.
Across the Atlantic, Google has been focusing much of its attention
on the Latin and South American markets. Earlier this year,
it announced a five year, $1.2 billion initiative to expand the
availability of its services in the region.
"In Latin America, realizing the potential of digital technologies
could generate an annual impact of $1.37 trillion in six of the
region's largest economies," Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote
in a June blog post.
Like Microsoft's Airband, Google's investments are largely centered
around increasing Latin America's access to digital services - in
short, creating customers.
