President Cyril Ramaphosa has commended the recognition by global technology companies of South Africa’s ambition to become a leading digital investment destination.

In his weekly newsletter to the nation, he highlights that the country has a unique opportunity to ‘leapfrog’ outdated and obsolete technologies to grow the economy and increase development, stressing the importance of building domestic capability and not fostering dependency.

He notes that the Google Africa Cloud Summit, held in Johannesburg on July 1, helped to position South Africa and the broader continent as a core growth region for the global cloud ecosystem.

At the summit, multinational technology corporation Google announced a range of investments including its ‘Building for Africa’ initiative, a new digital exchange port in the Eastern Cape and building a R3-million digital innovation centre at the South West Gauteng Technical and Vocational Education and Training College, in Soweto, Gauteng.

The ‘Building for Africa’ initiative is designed to advance the increased adoption of cloud technologies and to equip local ecosystems for AI-driven innovation and the digital exchange port is touted as a connectivity hub that will ensure reliable cloud services.

Applications will open later this month for the 2026 South African cohort of the Google for Startups Accelerator, through which 15 local-startups will be selected to receive AI training, mentorship and funding.

Further, Ramaphosa has also highlighted the plans announced in 2023 by cloud computing and technology company Amazon Web Services to invest R30.4-billion in its South African cloud infrastructure and Microsoft’s recent plans announced last year to invest R5.4-billion to develop local hyperscale could and AI infrastructure.

Last week, the President adds, card payment services company Mastercard also launched its Africa Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence beginning with a phased rollout in South Africa and Nigeria to strengthen cyber-resilience and enable more secure digital growth across Africa.

“Across the world, the digital economy is a catalyst for economic growth and job creation. Google estimates that its Johannesburg Cloud Region can contribute about R1.7-trillion in additional gross economic output by 2030 and support about 315 000 jobs.

“Digital technologies are increasingly being adopted to overcome developmental challenges in education, healthcare, service delivery and climate change. To build the economies and workplaces of the future, countries need to build digital infrastructure, including cloud computing and AI,” Ramaphosa says.

He also highlights that the country has a significant proportion of the Africa large data centre capacity and is the continent’s largest cloud market.

Small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMME) also stand to benefit from this as Ramaphosa acknowledges a study estimating that the SMME adoption of cloud computing could potentially unlock more than R185-billion for South Africa’s economy by 2030.

However, Ramaphosa also cautions that the digital economy must safeguard the rights and privacy of citizens, support environmental sustainability and uphold the country’s sovereignty.

“Our regulatory and policy environment must match innovation with safety. We must learn from other countries where vast amounts of sensitive public and private data have been held by private firms and outside national jurisdictions.

“As we navigate these complexities, we must deepen collaboration across government, business, labour, industry and civil society in pursuit of a digital future that is secure, inclusive and leaves no-one behind,” the President concludes.