Data centres as business platforms, cloud-based managed services and enabling AI are among the major opportunities for South African ICT businesses now, said cloud and data centre experts speaking at an ITWeb executive dinner event, hosted by MTN Business and Microsoft in Bryanston this week.
Christopher Geerdts, Managing Director at BMIT, noted that ahead of the G20, there was a great deal of focus on the digital divide.
“What is so apparent is the way cloud in particular has democratised access to ICT. It’s very easy now to access fairly powerful tools you couldn’t access some years ago. You can be anywhere in the country and if you have a phone, you can access very powerful AI. But while ICT has become democratised in South Africa, the digital divide is becoming more extensive because other countries are accelerating their use and the impact of AI and other tools in their society.
“What this means for us in the industry is that part of our role could be to make sure that our customers make better use of the tools that are available. The question is, how do you do that?” Geerdts said.
“Key learnings that came out of the digital transformation era were to use platforms rather than services, and to create exchanges between buyers and sellers,” he said.
“Essentially, the data centre is a platform between customers. If you’re sitting in one rack and another customer is sitting in another, you can become peers and supply to each other. By having these buyers and sellers sitting right next to each other in a highly scalable, secure environment, you’ve created an environment where businesses, applications, services and innovation can thrive. Examples of these businesses are new banks coming out of that completely data centre-based environment, with none of the hard slog of buying expensive equipment and premises.”
Trends and opportunities in ICT
Commenting on key trends in the sector, Geerdts said: “We’ve been monitoring ICT services for over 30 years, and what’s happening now is that almost without fail, all the services that show high growth are cloud based. Cloud has had a dramatic impact on driving top line revenue numbers.”
He said the serious shortage of skills had driven growth in managed services, while AI is expected to have a profound impact on the sector. Geerdts saw opportunities for businesses focusing on data and data quality as AI gained traction.
While the high level decision-makers attending the dinner were largely enthusiastic about the opportunities for generative AI and agentic AI to drive business and economic growth, they noted there were certain challenges to be overcome – such as adapting legacy architecture to accommodate AI, properly protecting data used for AI applications and implementing sound data governance for the AI era.
Sudipto Moitra, GM for ICT at MTN Business, called for South Africans to overcome the challenges and harness AI opportunities as one nation.
He highlighted use cases in which MTN Business had worked with partners to develop locally impactful solutions using AI.
“In South Africa, around 17 million citizens are financially excluded and unable to secure credit. Recently, our Chenosis API marketplace partnered with TransUnion to launch the TransUnion Telco Data Score, a first-in-Africa credit scoring solution that leverages AI and mobile phone call data records to help people with limited or no formal credit history to access financial services,” Moitra said.
MTN also recently worked with the Western Cape SAPS and City of Cape Town to deploy AI-driven cameras at selected police stations.
“MTN believes that we can do a great deal to help accelerate AI use cases and implementation in South Africa,” he concluded.
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