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If Africa’s digital future were to reflect the attendance at this year’s AfricaCom event, then it will be in excellent health. Currently underway at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, Africa’s largest technology conference has made a return after COVID thwarted the event during the previous two years.

For the conference’s opening session, President of Huawei Sub-Saharan Africa Region, Leo Chen, noted the importance of the digital economy, stipulating the growth the continent has shown, and the challenges it faces. He also mentioned how Huawei’s latest ICT developments can contribute to further digital transformation in Africa. His presentation entitled "Lighting up the Future with Nonstop Innovation", stated how the digital economy is growing faster than the real economy, and how fast-evolving tech is driving progress in spaces such as energy, healthcare, mining and ports, making these more ‘smart’.

“The high resilience and rapid growth of the continent’s digital economy, technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and cloud are evolving rapidly, and the adoption of ICT in a wide range of industries is growing,” said Chen. “They are supporting Africa in advancing the technical revolution, boosting productivity and increasing jobs.”

He pointed out that over the last two decades, Africa has made significant progress in digitalisation, with the establishment of first-mile infrastructure, while also tripling its middle-mile internet infrastructures. However, the last-mile broadband infrastructure remains a concern, and so too the digital divide between urban and rural areas.

“We need to further deepen connectivity to connect more people, enterprises and scenarios; unleash digital productivity and enable digital transformation in multiple industries; increase the ICT industry’s energy-efficiency and leverage ICT technologies to reduce emissions across all industries,” he said. 

Of particular relevance to the African context were case studies around the digital transformation of the port and mining sectors in China which have attracted wide attention from its African counterparts. These case studies provide examples and reference for the potential of the development of the digital economy in Africa. However, Chen did mention shared challenges many African countries are facing regarding ICT adoption, including slow digital transformation, a lack of digital skills, and problems regarding power supply.

Chen also called for more favourable industrial policies, as well as stronger cooperation between public and private sectors. To this end, Huawei has set up four innovation centres in Africa, launched several plans to support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and will train 100 000 digital champions in Africa over the next three years.

Huawei has a big presence at the event with the company’s network capabilities taking up a large display area. Showcased here are 5G solutions, including Very Large Scale Antenna Arrays, Ultra-Wideband RRU, routers, data centres and Meta AAU antennas amongst others.