The need for actionable steps to grow South Africa’s digital economy took centre stage during a panel discussion at the inaugural Huawei Cloud Summit in Johannesburg on 24 October. Commenting on Huawei’s role in unlocking digital growth Jacquline Shi, President of Huawei Cloud Global Marketing and Sales Service, stressed that without tech-savvy talent at the core of a digital ecosystem, “there are no real skills to understand and develop digital platforms.”

Shi stressed the importance of talent pipelines and why they are central to Huawei Cloud’s approach to supporting digital transformation in South Africa which does not just focus on infrastructure but also considers the role of knowledge sharing. “We have a vision to combine industry knowledge with public cloud technology,” she said. Adding that Huawei Cloud’s goal is to use its industry-leading international expertise to foster a strong digital ecosystem in South Africa.

Other panellists sharing the stage with Shi at this prestigious event included Alfred Mmoto, Acting Deputy Director-General at the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, Juanita Clark, CEO of advocacy group Digital Council Africa and Naspers CEO Phuti Mahanyele-Dabengwa.

Mmoto spoke about the government’s role in laying a path towards a digital future.

“We would like to create an investment-friendly environment for data and cloud services.”

He added that “as we encourage investment, we also want to create a deeper trust environment where everybody has the confidence to participate in our digital economy.”

Legislation like the Protection of Personal Information Act and policies like the National Data and Cloud Policy are some key signs of the intention to enable digital industry innovation and growth.

“We believe that connectivity is the cornerstone of digital transformation and the digital economy,” said Mmoto.

Growing digital industries, “takes concerted effort and partnership between public and private sector,” stressed Clark. For example, when considering the growing energy demand from the data centres, private sector participation will be crucial to helping the state plan for the energy needs of the future digital economy.

Clark spoke passionately about how deeper collaboration will be the key to unlocking growth.

Mahanyele-Dabengwa praised the collaborative environment being fostered between state and private actors to unlock opportunities for young people to be digitally enabled.

She also said that “infrastructure development is key”, to closing the access gap between how easily digital technologies are accessed in cities as compared to rural areas.

This is an important aspect of digitisation because it can directly contribute to GDP growth.

“Given that we are in a country where the economy is still struggling, we need to do all that we can to ensure that we have more digital enablement so that we can grow our economy,” said Mahanyele-Dabengwa.

Unpacking the role of Cloud and AI

Panellists were also encouraged to share their views on how cloud services and the artificial intelligence (AI) models they power, will come to define the digital economy in the future.

“Without data, there can be no real digital transformation,” said Shi. On this pressing topic, she encouraged enterprises to start to view their data as a strategic asset which can be securely stored on cloud platforms that enable greater efficiency and productivity with the power of AI.

“We need to digitise our physical assets, our workflows and our business operations so we can manage and work with all the data to unlock the real value of digital transformation.”

Shi predicts that AI will be the key to a new generation of digital transformation because it will reshape our workflows, business models and how we make use of knowledge. She stresses that in the future

“AI will be a key driver for every kind of industry,” and some of those impacts are being seen in South Africa today.

Huawei Cloud solutions are already making a difference in government and other sectors like mining, but gaps still need to be bridged for the potential of AI to be realised. Shi noted that one of the gaps that exist in a country like South Africa is the lack of strong and organised data. In her view only once sector-specific solutions are realised, only then can these tools be expanded to impact the whole economy.

Counterparts like Mahanyele-Dabengwa echoed the lasting impact that AI will have on South Africa, noting that Naspers has evolved from a media business in the past, into an AI-first organisation today.

“There is so much we can gain from the use of AI, and we are certainly seeing it,” she said. It is about doing more, doing better and increasing the quality of our work.

AI and cloud computing offer many advantages in the race to grow South Africa’s economy and digital prowess. As the country moves toward creating a new digital landscape and strives to unlock new growth opportunities, Huawei Cloud is proud to play its part in building thriving and prosperous local digital systems.