Econet targets Zim enterprise cloud market

Zimbabwe’s Econet Wireless has fully migrated its operations including mobile money and telecom infrastructure, onto Google Cloud, chief executive officer Douglas Mboweni said on Thursday.

The shift from on-premise computing and private data centres will improve network resilience, strengthen business continuity, and accelerate product feature deployments.

Offering third-party cloud computing services to local enterprises forms the next phase of the company’s strategy, Mboweni said.

He continued: “The advantages offered by the cloud are not limited to mobile operators. Many organisations in Zimbabwe do not have the dozens of specialist engineers required to operate a private cloud, so Econet can manage that infrastructure on their behalf and provide it as a service.”

The migration represents the first stage of a multi-pronged digital strategy following the unbundling of Econet’s cellphone tower operations into a separate entity.

To support regional enterprise demand, Econet has introduced Cassava AiCloud, providing local businesses with access to high-performance computing powered by NVIDIA graphics processing units hosted at the Cassava AI Factory in South Africa.

The operator is also offering six months of free access to Google Gemini to stimulate enterprise artificial intelligence adoption across the Zimbabwean market.