On the 27th of July 2020, Huawei announced the launch of a South Africa-based Cloud and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Innovation Centre. The Centre was created to propel innovation, knowledge transfer and economic growth through app development in the AI industry.

The President of HUAWEI CLOUD Africa Region, Ray Rui, made the announcement during the HUAWEI CLOUD Summit Africa 2020. The Summit is an online event to unveil the opportunities of cloud computing for African business. This year’s theme was titled “Building an Intelligent Africa”.
“AI will be critical to social evolution and industrial growth in future,” said Mr Rui. “We also believe that when you grow economic opportunities, everyone benefits. For this reason, we are opening the Huawei Cloud & AI Innovation Centre to application developers across all economic sectors.”
The new Innovation centre will be based at Huawei’s South African headquarters in Woodmead, Johannesburg. However, developers across Africa will be able to gain remote access to the centre. The centre aims to teach the best practices of AI application, link developers to markets, support AI supply chains, develop talent and support application innovation.
Huawei has become leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. To this end, it seeks to: Drive ubiquitous connectivity and promote equal access to networks; Provide the ultimate computing power to deliver ubiquitous cloud and pervasive intelligence; Build digital platforms to help all industries and organizations become more agile, efficient, and dynamic; Redefine user experience with AI, making it more personalized for people across all scenarios, whether they’re at home, in the office, or on the go.