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SA on cusp of becoming centre of innovation, says Nyati

Simnikiwe Mzekandaba
By Simnikiwe Mzekandaba, IT in government editor
Johannesburg, 15 Nov 2024
Mteto Nyati, Eskom board chairman and technology industry leader.
Mteto Nyati, Eskom board chairman and technology industry leader.

Eskom board chairman and technology 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 digital 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 data 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.

SA’s subsea cable market continues to expand.
SA’s subsea cable market continues to expand.

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.

However, many expertshave moved to allay these fears, saying the AI story is not one of despair atlarge-scale job losses, but will rather result in new roles.

Nyati conveyed similar sentiments during his address, saying the move to the AI era will help the country. “If you combine a human being with AI, you can attract work the continent could not attract in the past.

“Instead of seeing AI as a problem, it’s actually helping us to operate at a much higher value, moving our people to do work they may not have been able to do in the past.”

Not perfect, but still great

Nyati also addressed some of SA’s problems, noting these too can be overcome. Among these is citizens’ perception of the country, he stated. “As someone who has travelled and stayed and worked in three continents, over and above Africa, I know for sure our country has its challenges, but our country is great.”

The country is not perfect, he noted. “But show me one country that is perfect. What we need to determine is how to address these challenges.”

Many of SA’s challenges are directly linked to leadership, he added. “Sometimes we’ll try and look outward and try to get people from outside to come and rescue us. We have people on this continent, we have people in our country that can help us to address the challenges we face.

“However, the one area of failure is holding leaders accountable. We need to start having a good relationship with holding others accountable.

“We are not challenging many of our leaders and they are getting away with murder. As we move forward as a country, we need to figure out how to hold them accountable.”

He highlighted that Eskom is the perfect example of accountability. “It largely started with having leaders at the top, with a strong board and able to say no…that’s the kind of leadership needed.

“We also need to have a leadership that can hold the leaders of the operations accountable. If people are not doing their job, we need to have those tough conversations with them.”

He added that the Government of National Unity, which recently marked its 100 days in office, is the “perfect structure” for the country at this time. “It’s an opportunity for us to redefine and relook SA’s vision. In 1994, we had a vision of SA; how does that look like 30 years on? We’ve progressed in some areas and not in others.

“This Government of National Unity is like a reset button, where we have the opportunity to fix the areas where we have not done well. We need to focus on driving inclusive growth and to achieve this, we need people looking at our problems from different perspectives...and come up with practical solutions.”

Among identifiable solutions for SA is the GBS industry, which has done “exceptionally well” over the last 20 years, he said.

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