Africa, China's Huawei tech eldorado

Audio 04:29

For more than twenty years, the Chinese firm Huawei has supplied Africa with cutting-edge high-tech equipment.

© REUTERS / Kacper Pempel

By: Dominique Desaunay Follow

5 mins

While tensions between the United States and China, especially over 5G and the crisis in electronic components, still disrupt global high-tech developments, the telecom supplier Huawei is accelerating its deployment in Africa.

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For more than twenty years, the Chinese firm Huawei has provided Africa with cutting-edge high-tech equipment, computer centers driven by artificial intelligence programs capable of processing massive flows of data, turnkey solutions for e -commerce, cybersecurity systems or digital training spaces for all African countries.

The Chinese company, which was represented in the United Arab Emirates on the occasion of the 41st edition of the International Technology Fair, at Gitex in Dubai, would thus demonstrate that it has long enjoyed a privileged relationship with governments and large companies on the continent, explains Philippe Wang, executive vice-president of Huawei Northern Africa.

RFI: What does the African continent represent for Huawei?

Philippe Wang:

The continent is very important for our company. With our partners, we have intensified our activities. First of all with local telecom operators; then with African companies and governments in the economic and electronic administration sectors; and finally to increase our sales of digital products such as terminals for connecting to the Internet, smart watches, or even computers and other more general public devices that we produce.

Africa also represents for us a region of the world which is favorable to the implantation of all kinds of innovations, it is a digitally virgin continent which has a recent history with technologies.

We have thus been able to deploy latest generation telecoms and internet infrastructures in many countries.

► To read also: The leader of Huawei welcomed as a "heroine" on her return to China

Africa is also interested in the concept of so-called smart cities which require a lot of computing resources?

If the subject of “connected cities” seems to interest African megalopolises, the reality on the ground is quite different. There are not yet any projects that go in this direction or are truly successful. The reason is simple: to establish a smart city, you must first have a stable and above all scalable digital infrastructure over the entire territory of a country. And it is first and foremost a matter of priority, because Africa must first absorb its many white areas by developing long-lasting computer networks.

The second problem is the long-term return on investment of the financial and technological partners who will develop these smart cities.

A comeback that will not happen in 2 or 3 years, but well after 10 years, in the best case, and more likely will exceed 20 years, remaining optimistic.

Then it is also necessary that the governments which support this type of project demonstrate a "flexible policy" so that these connected cities support the entire sector of the digital economy throughout the country.

Ultimately,

represent the convergence of several levels of expertise ranging from technology to politics and good governance as well as the development of finance and the economy of an entire nation.

Smart cities that also require the establishment of an administration that is completely dematerialized and at the service of citizens?

Yes, and moving from traditional administration to fully digital administrative management is not just a story of technological tools.

The populations must also be trained and educated in new uses, change mentalities, change the way of life, change procedures, it is rather a digital culture that should be encouraged in this case.

In the economic sector, how do you help African companies to process the big data that passes through the data centers?

In fact, it is exactly Huawei's role to help businesses make their digital transition.

We help them build their IT infrastructures, we train their teams by ensuring a transfer of skills.

But once the company's project is launched, we no longer intervene.

Currently we talk a lot about artificial intelligence, cloud or cloud computing systems with our African customers for the processing and analysis of data in the industrial sector.

All these devices are technological building blocks which promote the economic development of societies.

► To read also: the Chinese giant Huawei sees its sales of smartphones fall

These powerful digital systems when properly used can achieve great things, such as improving the productivity of a business. But in Africa, companies must also ask themselves whether they are useful for the moment of all these devices. I think that the continent with the health crisis now needs these IT tools, because the uses of digital have exploded. Due to the pandemic, the demand is immense: populations have to work remotely, schoolchildren are forced to study online and people need to be treated remotely.

Africa does not yet have sufficient infrastructure capable of meeting all of its needs.

However, the situation is changing rapidly, we now see the continent as a laboratory for innovations that would accelerate its digital transition in various fields.

We have set up training centers in almost all countries to train young talents for free with

.

This initiative is aimed at the young generation so that they master and understand the challenges of current technologies and in turn innovate, thus contributing to the success of the digital transformation of the continent.

The Chinese firm achieves 20% of its turnover in Africa by offering its technological solutions to more than 200 telecom and internet operators on the continent.

It is developing infrastructure in 3G and 4G networks to connect rural areas and is currently positioning itself as an essential partner in the deployment of optical fiber.

However, if Huawei's vision in Africa is to make digital technology accessible to all Africans whatever their fields of activity, the firm considers that it will have to work over a long period which will perhaps be counted in decades, before obtaining fully a return on its investments.

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