On Monday, Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s largest cloud provider suffered a widespread outage that disrupted several platforms across the globe, from AI tools and government systems to fintech apps.
Around 09:00 am South African time, user complaints were already flooding in, according to data from Downdetector.
In local WhatsApp groups, the frustration was immediate. “Canva is down and the world has come to a standstill,” said Shireen Motara, founder of The Next Chapter Studio, a coaching company. With millions of active users in South Africa, the design tool has become essential for small businesses, creators, and marketers.
AWS later confirmed that the problem stemmed from a regional gateway on the US East Coast. The company resolved the issue about three hours after its first update, though some users continued to experience lag and connection errors.
For South African professionals, those three hours were costly.
“As someone managing several social media pages using SocialPilot, it’s very inconvenient when the platform is down,” said Ottis Manyoba, a social media marketer. “I had to post on each page manually, it’s time-consuming and kills productivity.”
AWS powers roughly one-third of the global cloud market, which means an outage can ripple through hundreds of popular apps and websites. Platforms like Standard Banks’ online services were among those briefly affected but later confirmed recovery.
For digital entrepreneurs, the outage was a reminder of how dependent modern businesses are on cloud infrastructure.
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“At first I thought it was my network,” said Sikhulile Hwalima, founder of Hwalima Digital, a web development agency. “Then I realised that everything I use, and everything my clients use, runs on AWS.
When a giant like that stumbles, it affects productivity and even client trust.”
The last major AWS outage comparable to this one occurred on June 13, 2023, when AWS Lambda in the Northern Virginia (US-EAST-1) region experienced significant error rates and slowdowns, causing widespread disruption until recovery later that day.
Other notable outages happened in December 2021 and November 2020, but none were as global or far-reaching as the ones seen today.
While AWS has restored services, the incident highlights a bigger issue for Africa’s growing digital economy, when global cloud infrastructure hiccups, local innovation feels the tremor almost instantly.
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