SA on Cusp of Becoming Centre of Innovation, says Nyati

November 20, 2024

Eskom board chairman and industry leader Mteto Nyati is bullish about South Africa’s prospects, pointing to increased investments by hyperscalers, subsea cables landing in the country and artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) potential as key signs to consider.

This is despite the country experiencing electricity and water supply constraints, law and order issues, joblessness and slow economic growth, among other issues.

Nyati was speaking at the annual BPESA GBS|BPO Conference 2024 yesterday. The Business Processing Enabling South Africa (BPESA) event was held in partnership with the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator and Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, and hosted by the Gauteng Provincial Government.

The conference aimed to highlight SA’s steady growth in the global business services (GBS) industry, which has been identified as the green shoot that can help overcome the country’s unemployment, with the sector targeting 500 000 new jobs by 2030.

At the conference, Nyati – a former chairperson of BPESA – unpacked what he recognises as SA’s strengths and reasons for businesses to set up a presence in the country. He noted that building young people’s skills also serves as opportunity for the nation.

According to Nyati, the move by hyperscalers – such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft − to build large centres in SA proves that opportunity is rife.

“Think about China…people talk about China as being the manufacturing capital of the world. If you are in the components business when it comes to manufacturing, the best place for you to be is where manufacturing is taking place.

“What we’re seeing here where all the hyperscalers have decided to make SA their home, that creates a great opportunity for the country, the continent and this [GBS] industry.

“All of these companies have decided to invest here; they are going to be building skills in this country…they are going to create an environment that makes SA that centre of innovation. AWS was started in Cape Town, and that’s the kind of skill we have in this country, and we need to leverage it and make sure we build around these capabilities.

“This is a perfect opportunity we have been given by the multinationals that have chosen SA as their home.”

There has also been an increase in investments from hyperscalers Alibaba, Google, Huawei and Microsoft Azure.

SA has also experienced accelerated in-country data centre investment in the past few years, coming from major data centre operators, such as Equinix, Africa Data Centres, NTT, Open Access Data Centres, Digital Realty’s Teraco and Vantage Data Centres.

Nyati indicated connectivity is another area that is important for the GBS industry. “How connected is the continent to the rest of the world to be part of the global village? Indeed, we are connected. We have WACS, Seacom and many other investments that have been made to connect our continent to the rest of the world.

“Putting your business in SA or the continent doesn’t mean you’ll be isolated. You are going to continue to be part of the global world because of the investments that continue to be made in this area.”

Amid the widening wave of AI adoption in recent years, the debate around its impact on jobs has reached fever pitch, with many worried about mass layoffs because of AI’s progress.

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Source: ITWeb