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Why is AI Infrastructure concentrated in South Africa - Not elsewhere?
Submarine cable convergence: South Africa sits at the landing point of SEACOM, WACS, ACE and EASSY cables, giving it unmatched international bandwidth. Lagos and Mombasa have partial access; most of the continent routes traffic through South Africa anyway, adding latency.
Hyperscaler bets: Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google Cloud all operate dedicated South Africa regions (Johannesburg/Cape Town). No other African country has more than one hyperscaler region. These decisions compound: once one commits, the others follow to avoid competitive disadvantage.
Grid reliability: Loadshedding notwithstanding, South Africa's power infrastructure remains more predictable than peers. Data centres require uninterrupted, high-density power; Nigeria's grid instability and Kenya's capacity constraints make underwriting that SLA difficult.
