Sri Lanka evaluates energy costs to lure cloud infrastructure giants

Sri Lanka is assessing the country’s energy cost attractiveness to major cloud infrastructure companies in its efforts to attract them to build in the country.

Constructing a secure and robust cloud infrastructure and protecting national data through local storage and governance are primary goals of the government’s draft Cloud Policy and Strategy. The ICTA initiated a public consultation on the strategy last month.

The country is in the midst of establishing a national digital ID, and maintaining the sovereignty and security of the sensitive biometric and biographical data involved is essential for public trust in the government’s digital transformation strategy.

“The critical layers in the digital economy blueprint are the data centre and the cloud infrastructure,” Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, Chief Adviser to the President on digital economy, told Biometric Update. “The cost of energy today determines the appetite of major investors and operators in the cloud infrastructure space. When they select which country or region to place their cloud infrastructure, it is an important criterion. It is a battle between countries to offer the best enabling environment, and a key element in the enabling environment is the cost of energy.”

Wijayasuriya said that Sri Lanka aims to enhance its cloud infrastructure by integrating local providers with global hyperscalers, targeting to establish a next-generation cloud ecosystem. Cost efficiency, security, and innovation, he said, are the main advantages of hyperscale public clouds.

Highlighting the necessity of developing a robust local cloud infrastructure to manage highly-sensitive data – which must remain within the country – Wijayasuriya noted that the country will adopt a hybrid multi-cloud architecture, combining residential, submarine, and public cloud models.

Setting up a national data exchange and a regulatory framework with classification guidelines will help determine which data should remain on-premises, which can be stored in a sovereign environment, and which can use the benefits of hyperscaler public clouds, Wijayasuriya explained.

Sri Lanka’s top cloud service providers include Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, with a significant portion of local organizations utilizing their services.

Earlier this year, Oracle had expressed its willingness to support Sri Lanka’s digitalization by providing Oracle Cloud infrastructure.

Article Topics

cloud computing  |  digital economy  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  SL-UDI  |  Sri Lanka