Building a Secure and Sovereign Cloud Future for Africa with Mark Louw

Mark Louw on Africa's cloud evolution: tackling load-shedding, data laws, and hyperscale competition to drive digital transformation and future growth

While global cloud giants have entered the African market, the true catalyst for its digital transformation is not just technology, but the local expertise that navigates its unique challenges, from load-shedding to data laws, turning obstacles into opportunities for scalable growth.

This is precisely the perspective Mark Louw, Managing Director at CoreCloud, brings. With deep experience in the African tech landscape, he provides a clear-eyed view of the continent's cloud adoption drivers, the persistent infrastructure hurdles, and the competitive dynamics shaping its future. In this interview, we explore the realities of building a digital-first future in one of the world's most promising markets.

Interview with Mark Louw

What are the key practical drivers accelerating cloud adoption across Africa today?

The biggest drivers are practical: CFOs are under cost pressure, execs want faster time-to-market, and boards know they can’t keep investing in heavy on-prem infrastructure. We see the most momentum in financial services, telco, retail/e-commerce, and the public sector, anywhere uptime and compliance are mission critical. Cloud regions in Johannesburg and Cape Town plus stronger peering at NAPAfrica have removed a lot of latency objections, so adoption curves are steepening.

Beyond the well-known issue of load-shedding, what other infrastructure friction points are slowing the shift to cloud?

Three friction points still slow the shift:

1. Power reliability: load-shedding drives up costs and risk for every data centre and customer.

2. Connectivity gaps, outside metros, coverage and capacity are still patchy.

3. Data affordability: End-user access costs remain high even as backbones improve.

Recent subsea cable outages reminded everyone how fragile routing can be, but redundancy projects are underway.

How do data localization laws like POPIA truly impact cloud design and deployment across the continent?

South Africa’s POPIA and similar laws across the continent allow cross-border data flows only when “adequate protection” is proven. Kenya and Nigeria follow the same model. This means cloud design still has to respect residency and localisation rules, especially for government and financial services data. The AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol is a step toward harmonised rules, but we aren’t there yet.

The global hyperscalers have arrived. How does this competition benefit local businesses, and what role do African players have?

Global hyperscalers, like AWS, Microsoft and Google, have set the pace with local regions, enterprise programs, and ecosystem investments. Local players like Huawei Cloud, Africa Data Centres, and Teraco bring residency, interconnect, and solar-backed resilience. The result is better latency, more choice, and sharper price/performance competition than we’ve ever seen.

Is the concern about cloud security now less about the technology itself and more about something else?

Boards still worry about BEC, ransomware, and data breaches. The real challenge isn’t whether cloud is secure, it’s whether teams have the skills and governance to run it securely. POPIA compliance, incident response readiness, and trusted reporting are now board-level requirements.

Looking ahead, what emerging technologies will define the next wave of cloud growth in Africa?

The next decade will be about AI workloads, edge computing, and fintech integrations running on local and regional cloud. Expect growth from 5G-enabled solutions, digital ID/payment rails, and more sovereign cloud options for regulated sectors. South Africa will remain the hub, but satellite markets will scale as connectivity and local talent catch up.