Real quick , name one piece of good news that involves Huawei from the last six months .

Uh , you mean good news for Huawei and not the US State Department ? Geez , that ’ s a tough one .

Beyond tentative 5G deals in Italy and Austria , Huawei has had a rough go of it in Europe , the US , and even at home over the last couple of years . But it ’ s not all doom and gloom .

It ’ s not ? .

No . Well , not in Africa at any rate . From Kenya to South Africa , Huawei has been racking up government and enterprise contracts to deliver data centre , cloud , and telecom services . The Senegalese government just opted to stick all its data in a Huawei-built , Chinese Export- Import Bank-funded data centre . So far , there have been 70 deals in 41 countries between Huawei and foreign governments or state-owned enterprises .

That ’ s not going to make Biden very happy .

It ’ s not , but the US and Europe have long left African countries to more or less fend for themselves , and Huawei ’ s reach is broadening by the day as it steps in to fill that gap .

� PRIVATE CLOUD Contrary to popular wisdom , the private cloud isn ’ t dead yet - far from it . Research conducted in early Q2 of 2021 points to investment in private cloud being on the rise .

� REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT Asset management companies in the real estate sector , like Macquarie Capital and Blackstone , are continuing to warm up to the idea of data centres as a sound investment .

� THE IRISH DATA CENTRE MARKET A new bill introduced to the Oireachtas recently looks to ban all data centre construction in the country to support Ireland in hitting its national sustainability goals .

� INTEL Intel ’ s data centre business is on the rocks - so much so that Intel ’ s CEO , Pat Gelsinger , has gutted the division , firing Navin Shenoy , and bringing in fresh talent to run the new units .

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