[jhonof]

Wouldn't Botswana be as good if not better? It has significantly lower corruption issues, and higher GDP per capita and HDI when compared to SA. It also is an incredibly fast growing economy and it has lower crime. Does Botswana just currently not have the talent or infrastructure?

[jhugo]

I think a significant factor, apart from generally worse infra and a smaller talent pool, would be the lack of a coastline. Basically all the long-distance capacity in Africa is in the form of submarine cables going around the coast. A landlocked country means you have to rely on terrestrial systems through at least one third country, introducing a whole range of new costs and risks, and probably makes it hard to get the desired level of control/ownership for the inter-region connectivity (cloud providers are often investing in submarine cable systems directly now).