While networks in key sectors such as education, transport and healthcare continue to feel the transformational impact of agentic AI – the same technology used to spearhead sophisticated cyber attacks – platforms and solutions with AI capabilities are being developed to help protect network infrastructure, says Huawei SA.
Speaking at the Huawei South Africa IP Club 2026 event hosted in Johannesburg this week, Kui Zheng, CEO of Huawei Enterprise South Africa, said AI is transforming everything, making life smarter and faster.
“But it is also introducing new risk to the network… the technology enables cyber criminals to attack faster and with more sophistication,” said Zheng.
He added that traditional security practices and solutions cannot guard against these attacks, which is why organisations are looking into agentic AI security.
Huawei SA executives emphasised the relevance of the company’s AI technology portfolio, including the Xinghe AI SASE (secure access service edge) solution, which is used in several vertical markets, including government, finance, education, manufacturing, healthcare and ISP.
Mpolokeng Marakalla, CTO for enterprise business commercial market and distribution at Huawei South Africa, said the company works with customers across several sectors, including government, healthcare, retail, enterprise, education, production, hospitality and finance.
Huawei SA’s approach to deploying smart infrastructure within industries – to help companies establish and leverage intelligent networks – is to first identify business requirements, challenges and expectations before advocating a solution.
According to Marakalla, the company is positioned to supply the technology solutions businesses require to digitally transform.
Huawei listed business opportunities linked to digital operations, including campus networks entering the WiFi 7 era, network security as the foundation of digital operations, and surging data centre construction.
Yanjun Yu, senior principal architect at Anshi Lab, Edison Research Centre, Huawei Canada Research Institute, added that the overall objective behind deploying AI security technology is to make it too costly and too risky for threat actors to launch attacks. The rationale is that these actors will take their business elsewhere.
“Agentic AI is the most significant disruption in cyber security; it is a double-edged sword. The technology is used to launch autonomous attacks for criminal gain, but is also used for autonomous defence for organisational protection,” said Yu. “Identity is the new perimeter.”
He also pointed to quantum technology as a disruptive force that could be used by criminals targeting sensitive data in the form of ‘harvest now, decrypt later’ – a threat in which attackers steal encrypted data and keep it until technology like quantum computing can be used to unlock it.
According to Yu, while many organisations believe there is still plenty of time before quantum computing technology reaches maturity, the reality is that it will take far less time.
“By 2030, the quantum threat will be very real… but there is opportunity within this crisis, and organisations can strengthen their resilience by embracing agility and finding trustworthy partners,” he added.
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