Google launching Digital Exchange Port in Eastern Cape to enhance local connectivity and compute – Hypertext

Connectivity and capacity – these are two elements that local customers have been asking more of from Google, James Manyika, SVP for Research, Labs, Technology, and Society highlighted in his keynote address during yesterday’s Google Cloud Summit Johannesburg 2026.

In order to address these elements, Manyika announced that Google has an infrastructure project earmarked for the Eastern Cape. More specifically, he confirmed that a Digital Exchange Port will be established in the region, serving as a new connectivity hub for South Africa.

It is also one of four connectivity hubs that Google has planned for the African continent.

While one of four, this hub appears to be critically positioned, as Google explained that it will “anchor the country as a strategic international switching point.” On this front, it will directly connect the continent to Australia via the Umoja subsea cable, as well as a new subsea route to India, to support African internet connectivity.

“From a new Digital Exchange Port in the Eastern Cape to Africa’s first Applied AI lab, we’re harnessing technical progress and building partnerships to amplify and scale Africa’s incredible vibrancy, hustle, and innovation for the world,” enthused Manyika.

These sentiments were echoed by President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was present during the keynote of the Summit, and engaged with executives from Google around the issues of digital skills, and in particular the positioning of South Africa as a leader of AI on the continent.

“As we step boldly into the age of artificial intelligence, our aspiration is to anchor South Africa as a catalyst for the continent’s digital ascendancy. By building robust infrastructure to harness this technology, we are doing more than modernising our economy, we are taking a quantum leap into the future,” he told Summit attendees.

At the time of writing, no timeline has been shared as to when this new connectivity hub will be up and running, but when it does, it is not only expected to be handling a sizeable amount of connectivity-related workload, but is also intended to serve as a catalyst for job creation in the region.

Google told Hypertext that this is part of the reason why it selected the Eastern Cape for the connectivity hub, as its setup would have a larger impact outside of simply addressing infrastructure needs in terms of cloud computing in the region.

It will be interesting to see just what kind of impact it has to employment in the region, once set up.