[Johannesburg, South Africa, July 3, 2025] Huawei held the Huawei South Africa Connect 2025 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Themed Accelerate Industrial Digital Intelligence for South Africa, this event attracted over 2,900 participants from the South African government, industry customers, and partners.
South Africa has placed digital inclusion at the heart of its developmental agenda. At the event, Solly Malatsi, Hon. Minister of the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies noted that South Africa has developed four measurable Ministerial Priorities: Expanding Connectivity and Access to Devices, Building a Digitally Skilled Society, Unlocking the Productive Use of Technology, and Creating a Supportive Environment for Inclusion and Investment. These four priorities aim to build an innovative and high-performing digital ecosystem for all South Africans.
Solly Malatsi, Hon. Minister of the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, delivering a speech
Will Meng, CEO of Huawei South Africa, stated in his welcome speech, that “Digital transformation is more than technology — It’s the engine of national progress. Our goal is clear: to accelerate South Africa’s journey to industrial digital intelligence, driving innovation, boosting productivity, and ensuring long-term competitiveness.”
Will Meng, CEO of Huawei South Africa, delivering a welcome speech
Cloud and AI are a key driving force for industry innovation and economic growth. Joy Huang, Vice President of Huawei Cloud, expressed that ” Huawei Cloud is dedicated to offering AI-native cloud services. By implementing the ‘Cloud for AI’ and ‘AI for Cloud’ strategies, we aim to expedite the intelligent transformation across industries in South Africa.”
Joy Huang, Vice President of Huawei Cloud, delivering a keynote speech
Hong-Eng Koh, Global Chief Public Services Industry Scientist of Huawei, agreed; “From a technological angle, gone are the days of siloed implementations. We need a long-term architecture for the intelligent transformation journey, including unified networks and unified clouds.” Huawei has accumulated extensive digital transformation practices globally, which provide concrete and feasible pathways for intelligent upgrade. It aims to use its expertise to contribute to South Africa’s digital economic development.
Gene Zhang, CEO of Huawei South Africa Enterprise Business, further introduced that Huawei, with its All Intelligence strategy and a deep understanding of industry scenarios, has released a reference architecture, 4 enablement models, and over 200 industry solutions to help various industries go digital and intelligent faster.
Gene Zhang, CEO of Huawei South Africa Enterprise Business, delivering a keynote speech
Digital and intelligent advancement relies on ecosystem building and cooperation with partners. Peter Zhang, Vice President of Global Partner, Commercial & Distribution, Enterprise Sales, Huawei, underscored in his speech, “Our strategy in the government and enterprise market is ‘Partners + Huawei’. Huawei attaches great importance to partner development and will constantly enhance investment and support for partners.”
In South Africa, Huawei has collaborated with over 1,400 local companies to jointly address customers’ digital and intelligent transformation needs.
Additionally, leveraging over 3,000 courses covering 22 technical categories, Huawei aims to train over 50,000 ICT professionals in the region by 2028.
At the event, Jonas Bogoshi, CEO of BCX, and customers from sectors like government, transportation, electric power, finance, and ISP, shared their success stories of digital and intelligent transformation.
With a slogan of “In South Africa, for South Africa,” Huawei has been doing business in this country for 26 years. Huawei has consistently provided leading ICT infrastructure on top of talent development and technological innovation platforms to further the development of South Africa’s digital and intelligent economy. Moving forward, Huawei will continue to work closely with customers and partners, gain profound insights into industry scenarios and needs, provide customized solutions, and jointly build a thriving ecosystem.