At the event, Huawei Cloud experts will present South African industry customers with the company's AI strategy and product innovations, sharing leading AI practices worldwide across a range of sectors.
Huawei Huawei South Africa Connect 2025 was held in Johannesburg, South Africa. The event, which promotes thematically-themed industrial digital intelligence for South Africa, attracted over 2,900 participants, including South African government representatives, industry clients and partner organizations. At the event, Huawei Cloud experts will present South African industry customers with the company's AI strategy and product innovations, sharing leading AI practices worldwide across a range of sectors.
Building AI-Native Cloud to accelerate intelligent change in South Africa
Cloud and AI are key drivers of industry innovation and economic growth. Joy Huang, vice president of Huawei Cloud, gave his keynote address, “Accelerating intelligence and amplifying success,” sharing practices from the global AI industry.
“Africa embraces the historic opportunity for intelligent development, which has emerged as a vital engine for cloud and AI to drive business innovation and economic growth. With deep roots in Africa, Huawei Cloud is dedicated to providing AI native cloud services. The AI era.”
–Joy Fan, Vice President of Howay Cloud.
Partnering with more South African AI pioneers to drive industry innovation
During the summit, Huawei Cloud held a forum-themed “Accelerating Intelligence and Amplifying Success” to share the latest updates on business progress in South Africa and success stories of empowering customers. At the forum, Rex Lei, president of Huawei Cloud Sub-Saharan Africa, gave the opening speech.
“AI believes that it will help South Africa acquire new capabilities, new opportunities and improve the competitiveness of the nation. More and more industry customers in South Africa are choosing Huawei Cloud for digitalization and intelligence. They want to become an integral part of this journey and contribute to South Africa's industrial information.
-Rex Lei, president of Huawei Cloud Sub-Saharan Africa.
Together we grow: partnering with South Africa on its digital journey
Steven Chen, managing director of Huawei Cloud South Africa, highlighted the company's commitment to South Africa's digital transformation through collaboration, highlighting Huawei Cloud's position as the first hyperscaler in a region with zero downtime. He also made announcements that include the launch of the Pangu Models 5.5 and the powerful CloudMatrix 384.
Continuous Innovation: Pangu Model Accelerates Industry Reshaping
The Pangu model in Huawei Cloud focuses on applications aimed at industry. The Pangu model helps customers tackle the most challenging issues in a particular scenario, rethinking both operational and efficiency in many industries.
Li Yin, Chief Technology Officer of Huawei Cloud Pangu Models, shared the innovations of Pangu Models 5.5.
“The Pangu model of Huawei Cloud has been deployed in over 500 scenarios across more than 30 industries around the world, driving intelligent upgrades in government, finance, healthcare, weather and more. Companies are currently actively embracing AI.
–Li Yin, Chief Technology Officer, Huawei Cloud Pangu Models.
Huawei Cloud will continue to promote innovation, deepen industry expertise, develop more customer-centric services, and help more South African customers bounce back into intelligence. Huawei Cloud looks forward to teaming up with more African customers to unlock new opportunities for intelligence in the industry and creating an intelligent future.
