South Africa could add between R1 trillion and R1.4 trillion to its economy by 2030 through artificial intelligence, alongside the creation of up to 400 000 new jobs. Those projections, presented at Huawei’s South Africa Connect 2026 conference, set the terms for a gathering of 2 900 government and industry leaders focused on how the country converts AI readiness into measurable economic outcomes.
Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Solly Malatsi used the occasion to call for deeper partnership between government and industry. He identified connectivity and affordable devices as immediate policy priorities, framing AI not as a commercial trend but as a governance imperative tied to the country’s developmental challenges. His remarks positioned the AI transition squarely within the mandate of his department, signalling that policy coordination, not market forces alone, will shape the pace of adoption across public services.
The accountability question is sharpened by a significant skills gap. Fewer than 35 percent of South African enterprises have identified where AI could unlock value within their own data, and the country faces a projected shortfall of approximately 200 000 AI and information and communications technology professionals by 2030. That gap threatens to constrain both the public sector’s capacity to regulate and the private sector’s ability to deliver.
By contrast, the physical infrastructure already in place is substantial. Huawei’s network reaches 85 million mobile users through 28 000 base stations. Its optical solutions connect 3.4 million households to broadband, and the company has deployed more than 800 private campus networks extending connectivity to over 100 hospitals and more than 3 000 schools. Huawei Cloud operates from three availability zones within South Africa, serving more than 300 customers and over 1 000 technology partners.
Kui Zheng, deputy general manager of Huawei South Africa, argued that realising AI’s potential requires collaboration across multiple partners, developers and customers rather than dependence on any single company. He pointed to a rail security deployment already operating locally, one that has reduced cable theft by 80 percent, as evidence that the infrastructure foundation is sufficient to support broader expansion.
The local partner ecosystem reflects that distributed model. More than 1 400 South African companies now form part of Huawei’s network, accounting for 94.7 percent of the company’s local revenue and more than 90 percent of its delivery and service work. Projects span digital twin work with BCX, smart retail with Altron, connected healthcare with Gijima and secure paperless government systems with CoCre8.
Will Meng, CEO of Huawei South Africa, outlined a sequential framework for AI readiness: informatisation builds connectivity, digitalisation puts data to work, and intelligence creates new economic value. He cited network and grid projects in China as evidence that this staged approach delivers results, and argued that large-scale AI deployment requires solid digital infrastructure as its foundation.
Nicholas Ma, corporate vice president and president of Global Government and Enterprise Key Account at Huawei, introduced the ACT pathway, a framework designed to move enterprises from pilot projects to full-scale AI adoption. The approach assesses high-value scenarios before organisations calibrate AI models on high-quality industry data. Globally, the methodology has identified more than 1 000 core production scenarios and built a community of more than four million ecosystem developers.
South Africa’s standing as the top-performing Sub-Saharan African nation for AI readiness gives the country a credible starting point. Whether the regulatory environment and institutional capacity can keep pace with the scale of investment being proposed is the question that will define the decade’s outcome.