Who shapes the digital future? South Africa’s G20 test

Rennie Naidoo, professor in Information Systems at the Wits School of Business Sciences.

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In 2025, South Africa assumes the G20 presidency – the first African nation to lead the world’s most powerful economic forum. It’s a historic moment. But it’s also more than that. South Africa brings the voice of Africa and the broader Global South into spaces urgently in need of new perspectives. 

It is a rare opportunity for African and other emerging economies to shape the next chapter of the digital age on their own terms.

Under the banner of ‘Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability’, South Africa’s G20 leadership frames itself as people-centred, development-driven and attuned to the polycrisis confronting the global order. Yet these aspirations must be more than thematic statements. They require infrastructure, not just physical, but digital.

Behind every agenda item – whether disaster resilience, healthcare, climate change, economic instability, geopolitical tensions, technological disruption, food security, or inclusive growth – lies an invisible system of digital architecture. Cloud infrastructure, open data platforms, AI systems and cyber security architectures are quietly reshaping how states govern, allocate resources and respond to these crises.

If South Africa’s G20 presidency is to deliver tangible results, it must place digital sovereignty at the centre of the conversation.

South Africa’s stated priorities for the G20 – from inclusive economic growth, to reducing inequality and unemployment – depend on a functioning digital backbone.

During the pandemic, governments relied on accurate data and connected digital platforms to manage public health responses and social support. Now, digital technologies – from AI-based forecasting to inclusive financial tools – are helping countries improve fiscal transparency and expand access to finance.

The problem is that these digital systems are not neutral. Nor are they equitably distributed.

We must push for African inclusion in global AI governance, including at the standards-setting and ethical oversight levels.

Across much of the continent, digital infrastructure is fragmented. Data travels through cables and servers governed by foreign jurisdictions. Cloud platforms are owned mainly by a small group of global providers. Cyber security frameworks are often imported wholesale and are ill-suited to African realities.

This is not just about access – it’s about control. Digital sovereignty means more than localisation. It is about strategic autonomy – that is, the capacity to build, govern and protect our digital systems on our terms.

The global AI race is increasingly a two-player contest dominated by the United States and China, whose control over AI research, patents and infrastructure risks marginalising the rest of the world.

If developing economies are not active co-creators of AI norms, they will be rule-takers in a system designed without them. South Africa’s G20 presidency offers a rare opportunity to advocate for a more inclusive, multipolar digital future.

Among the G20 priorities, one deserves urgent attention: artificial intelligence and innovation for sustainable development.

AI is no longer a peripheral technology. It is becoming the operating system of modern life – determining creditworthiness, shaping education, managing energy grids and diagnosing illness. But if these systems are trained on data that ignores African realities and are designed by actors unfamiliar with local needs, we risk perpetuating digital dependency through algorithmic opacity.

South Africa’s G20 presidency provides a platform to change that.

We must push for African inclusion in global AI governance, including at the standards-setting and ethical oversight levels. But beyond influence, we need infrastructure – locally trained AI models, open data commons initiatives and equitable access to computing resources.

We also need to support innovation ecosystems that prioritise public value over private profit, from climate-smart agriculture and multilingual natural language processing to healthcare diagnostics that reflect our population’s needs.

To lead authentically, South Africa should model an approach that invests in both AI capacity and AI accountability. That is how innovation becomes sovereignty – and how sovereignty enables sustainable development.

As the world races to patent AI models and prioritise private sector innovation, South Africa should champion a more balanced approach – one where AI safety, ethical deployment and the ability to deliver inclusive, real-world solutions are given equal importance to research breakthroughs.

Universities, research institutes and public sector innovation hubs must be empowered to drive not just discovery but responsible implementation, ensuring AI innovation serves broader social and developmental goals, rather than short-term profits or unchecked state surveillance.

We have already seen how failing to prioritise safety and ethics, as in the unchecked rise of social media, can fracture democracies, fuel technology addiction and destabilise even the so-called advanced societies. The stakes with AI are even higher.

As South Africa leans into AI and innovation, it must also confront a hard truth. The technologies that promise efficiency and growth could deepen inequality and exacerbate unemployment unless met with an equally bold labour transition strategy.

The productivity benefits of AI are well-documented. Automation can improve accuracy, optimise logistics and reduce costs across sectors. In a resource-constrained public sector, AI-driven services may seem like an obvious gain.

But in a country with one of the world’s highest unemployment rates – and a workforce heavily dependent on low- to mid-skill jobs – automation could erode livelihoods at scale. Sectors like retail, call centres, warehousing and even entry-level administration are already seeing gradual displacement by intelligent systems.

The advance of agentic AI systems, capable of setting and pursuing goals autonomously, presents profound risks for global labour markets. Emerging AI technologies could also automate high-skill roles traditionally seen as resilient, including software engineering, financial analysis and legal support services.

Without proactive planning, the economic disruption could extend far beyond traditional sectors, exacerbating inequality and weakening the social fabric in both developed and developing economies.

Demographic trends are also reshaping the future of work. Declining birth rates across many economies are contributing to concerns about skills shortages, prompting a growing reliance on digital labour, automation and robotics as substitutes for human workers.

While this may mitigate short-term labour gaps, it risks entrenching new forms of inequality, where wealthier nations automate their economies, while developing countries face deepening unemployment, social instability and exclusion from global value chains unless deliberate inclusion strategies are put in place.

This raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: Can South Africa afford to embrace AI without a coherent strategy for inclusive job creation and sustainable employment pathways?

South Africa’s G20 presidency must place this dilemma on the table.

It should push for AI transition justice – a coordinated international effort to ensure the shift toward automation and intelligent systems does not come at the cost of livelihoods, dignity, or opportunity in the Global South.

If AI is to be a tool for sustainable development, it must be matched by sustainable employment pathways – both in the formal economy and the informal sectors, where most South Africans live and work.

It’s easy to treat digital policy as a technical domain. But make no mistake, this is a matter of geopolitics. Africa remains at the periphery of internet governance forums, has a limited voice in setting global digital tax regimes and often finds itself adapting to protocols it had no role in creating.

South Africa’s presidency can challenge this asymmetry. It must advocate for balanced digital diplomacy – one that ensures developing countries have a fair say in shaping the digital commons. That includes promoting equitable cross-border data flows, open-source collaboration and rethinking intellectual property regimes that stifle local innovation.

We also need to confront a dangerous assumption embedded in the G20 narrative that Africa’s contribution lies mainly in its critical minerals. These resources are vital for green technologies, yes, but true power does not lie in extraction, but in value addition. South Africa should connect its G20 mineral agenda to a digital industrialisation strategy – semiconductors, intelligent systems embedded in devices, robotics and AI, built and governed in Africa.

At a time when some global powers are retreating from multilateral commitments, narrowing their focus to domestic interests, South Africa can offer a counter example – one grounded in collaboration, equity and long-term thinking.

In an era of digital disruption, ecological urgency and rising global polarisation marked by a growing retreat from cooperative norms, the rule of law, and an increase in unilateral moves by some major powers, vacated leadership is not just a geopolitical gap. It is a developmental risk.

The G20 summit in Johannesburg will convene the world’s most powerful economies, along with invited partners from across the Global South.

But leadership today is no longer measured by the size of one’s economy. It is defined by the clarity of one’s agenda and the courage to shape the rules. This is South Africa’s moment to demonstrate both.

Digital sovereignty, in particular, should not be treated as a side issue. It is the enabling condition for inclusive growth, innovation and resilience. It is the foundation upon which a more equitable digital economy can be built – one that serves the many, not just the few. But digital sovereignty alone will not shield us from the social costs of automation.

As AI accelerates automation, the risk is that digital progress will come with mass unemployment, especially in economies already burdened by joblessness. South Africa must use its G20 presidency to champion a global AI transition agenda that includes labour safeguards, inclusive reskilling and innovation that works for working people.

Because the true test of leadership is not whether we embrace the future, but whether we shape it to serve those who might otherwise be left behind.

The G20 presidency should not be viewed as ceremonial. It is a strategic instrument – a chance to advance a vision of a world where data, digital infrastructure and AI-driven technologies are governed by principles of fairness, foresight and human dignity – even amid the uncertainty and fragmentation of today’s geopolitical landscape.

To ensure South Africa’s G20 leadership turns vision into action, several key policy priorities should guide the digital sovereignty agenda:

Balance AI innovation with AI safety: Innovation cannot come at the expense of ethics and human rights. South Africa should push the G20 to treat AI safety, ethical deployment and human rights impact assessments with equal weight to research breakthroughs and intellectual property protection.

Promote inclusive AI infrastructure and capacity: The Global South needs more than access. It needs agency. G20 support should focus on investments in digital commons, locally trained AI models and equitable access to computing resources, so developing economies can shape their own digital futures.

Strengthen the role of universities and public sector innovation: Universities, research institutes and public sector innovation hubs must be positioned as central players in both AI discovery and responsible implementation, not just as passive recipients of corporate innovations.

Safeguard against private and state abuse: AI systems must not reinforce private monopolies or enable unchecked state surveillance. Transparent accountability mechanisms should be embedded at every level of governance.

Champion a fair labour transition strategy: South Africa should spearhead a G20 initiative on AI transition justice, ensuring inclusive reskilling, social safety nets and innovation pathways that prioritise job-rich sectors and protect vulnerable workers.

Advance multipolar AI governance: Global internet governance must reflect more than the interests of a few superpowers. South Africa can advocate for reform that gives developing economies a fair and meaningful role in setting global digital norms.

But building the digital future requires more than vision and policy. It demands the wisdom to manage risks across technology, society, governance and the planet we share. It demands collective resolve – and the courage for nations to lead where some are retreating behind the walls of self-interest.

For the digital future will shape us… unless we claim the right to shape it together.

* Based on recent G20 policy work being done across the Wits Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management.