At the 2025 Huawei South Africa Connect Event, Gene Zhang, CEO of Huawei South Africa Enterprise Business, emphasised the company’s commitment to driving intelligent transformation across industries.
“Huawei is confident in its role as a trusted partner for South Africa’s AI-powered future,” he stated. “With 26 years of local innovation, we are dedicated to building a smarter, more connected South Africa.”
A Legacy of Digital Leadership
Huawei has been instrumental in South Africa’s ICT evolution, achieving milestones such as:
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Becoming the first hyperscale cloud provider with a local availability zone.
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Deploying the country’s first 5G network.
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Spearheading AI-driven solutions across mining, finance, and urban management.
Throughout this journey, we at Huawei have stayed true to our motto: “In South Africa, for South Africa.
“We have built a local OpenLab in partnership with South African enterprises, a training center to support local talent development, and most recently, in 2023, we unveiled the Huawei South Africa Innovation Center alongside President Ramaphosa – underlining our commitment to driving local innovation,” said Zhang.
Building AI-Ready Infrastructure
To harness AI’s potential, Huawei addresses critical challenges:
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Data & Connectivity: Enhancing utilization beyond the current <30% with unified platforms.
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Computing Power: Scaling AI capacity to meet projected 500x global demand growth by 2030.
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Industry Integration: Accelerating cloud adoption and AI deployment in key sectors.
Huawei’s All Intelligence Strategy
Leveraging its 6-layer reference architecture, Huawei enables industries through:
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Zero-trust security and resilient ICT infrastructure.
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Cloud platforms reducing development time from months to weeks.
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AI frameworks applied in 1,000+ scenarios, from energy to finance.
Local Partnerships & Talent Development
To further support South Africa’s industry digital transformation, Huawei is committed to developing a strong local partner ecosystem.
“We believe in growing together to better serve our shared customers,” said Zhang.
With 1,400+ South African partners, Huawei ensures 97% of enterprise sales are locally driven.
Ultimately, success in any endeavor depends on people. Huawei actively supports South Africa’s talent development strategy by providing tech-based, practice-oriented training to local partners and the next generation of professionals.
The company also aims to train 50,000 ICT professionals by 2028, bridging the 500, 000 talent gap.
Globally, Huawei has 30 years of technical know-how and ICT project experience.
“We are developing and constantly optimizing 3 thousand courses covering 22 technical categories. We are bringing these capabilities to South Africa with the goal of training over 50 thousand ICT professionals in the country by 2028,” said Zhang.
Huawei remains committed to a digitally inclusive South Africa, ensuring AI’s benefits reach all.
Digital and intelligent transformation is picking up steam in all industries, creating huge opportunities for everyone.
“We will continue working to fulfill our commitment of being “In South Africa, For South Africa”: by supporting digital infrastructure, deeply understanding industry needs and offering tailored solutions, and contributing to the local innovation ecosystem — so that everyone can benefit from the intelligent era,” said Zhang.
“A magnificent digital and intelligent future lies ahead. Together, let’s seize the opportunities of this transformation and ensure its benefits are felt by all. By working hand in hand, I’m confident we will build a better future for this great country.”
