If you host your data center in Africa, but use cloud services in USA or Europe, the latency is going to kill you and your app will even be slower. So you must be willing to give up using AWS, Azure, GCP, etc. If not, then the title of the talk should be AWS, Azure, GCP should build data centers in Africa, but then it doesn't make sense economically. The article mentioned how Nigerians spend about $60 million a year on outside data centers. VCs won't even invest in a software only startup that will make $60mil a year. Let alone a business like a datacenter that needs physical location, properties, personnel, etc