JOHANNESBURG, July 2020 – Business leaders and ICT experts from across Africa will convene on July 27 for the HUAWEI CLOUD Summit Africa 2020, an online event to unpack the opportunities of cloud computing for African business and how cloud will transform industries during the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

The event will feature a dozen industry leaders addressing the theme, “Building an intelligent Africa”. It will investigate how cloud will fundamentally revolutionise sectors such as finance, energy, manufacturing, mining and others. The HUAWEI CLOUD offering will be a central part of this transformation, driving rapid industry progress with local partners.

“We look forward to mapping Africa’s cloud-enabled future with leading players across critical sectors,” said Ray Rui, President of HUAWEI CLOUD, Africa Region. “The Summit will feature innovators and Huawei partners in the AI, fintech, SME and e-commerce arenas, and offer great insights into how cloud will enable progress and rapid tech evolution.”

The HUAWEI CLOUD Summit Africa 2020 online event on 27 July will feature 12 speakers in a compact two-hour programme. Speakers will include; Kabelo Makwane, Managing Executive of Cloud, Hosting and Security – Vodacom Business; Bosco Ho, Regional Sales Development Manager, Intel Corporation; Jannie Engelbrecht, Cloud Business Unit Manager of Pinnacle; Ray Rui, President of HUAWEI CLOUD, Africa Region, and Michael Langeveld, VP of HUAWEI CLOUD Africa Region.

The 4IR transformation will be characterised by massive, large-scale communication via the Internet of Things, with cloud as the foundation of these mass communication capabilities.

Africa still has great potential in terms of cloud, and is showing significant progress, with data-centre capacity doubling in the past three years. However, Africa’s cloud capacity still accounts for less than one percent of global availability.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown have driven up data demand as remote work and e-commerce become the norm. In this context, cloud computing, with its instant availability of IT resources, has also been a fundamental support system for African organisations.

Globally, many enterprises have adopted cloud-first strategies, and the trend is likely to find broad application in Africa too.

The HUAWEI CLOUD Summit Africa 2020 takes place on Monday July 27, from 10am – 12noon. Attendees can register for the free summit at https://activity.huaweicloud.com/intl/en-us/summit_johannesburg_2020/index.html.

About Huawei

Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. With integrated solutions across four key domains – telecom networks, IT, smart devices, and cloud services – we are committed to bringing digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.

Huawei's end-to-end portfolio of products, solutions and services are both competitive and secure. Through open collaboration with ecosystem partners, we create lasting value for our customers, working to empower people, enrich home life, and inspire innovation in organizations of all shapes and sizes.

At Huawei, innovation focuses on customer needs. We invest heavily in basic research, concentrating on technological breakthroughs that drive the world forward. We have more than 180,000 employees, and we operate in more than 170 countries and regions. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company fully owned by its employees.

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For additional information please contact:

Abigail le Roux

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Vanashree Govender

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