SPARKS DIGITAL
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How AI can solve our country’s biggest challenges By: Dean Wolson, general manager of Infrastructure Solutions Group at Lenovo Africa S outh Africans have a long tradition of doing more with less, and that resourcefulness may be our greatest It accounted for over 43% of Africa’s digital transformation market in 2024, reflecting strong adoption of cloud, analytics, and AI technologies. Internet penetration in the country
South African innovators. • Health and pharmaceuticals: AI-driven simulations can drastically speed silico modelling of drug interactions, guiding researchers in prioritising compounds for development at a fraction of traditional HPC cost. • Transportation and logistics: South Africa’s economy depends on the efficient movement of goods across vast distances. Autonomous systems and traffic simulations powered by AI can support smarter transport planning, especially in urban hubs like Johannesburg and Cape Town, without massive computing overhead. • Climate resilience: Simulation models that predict drought patterns, water resource fluctuations, and renewable energy scenarios could inform adaptive policymaking. Rather than waiting for centuries-scale data, AI-enhanced HPC provides highly probable futures in accessible timeframes. South Africa’s HPC landscape is growing. The Centre for High-Performance Computing (CHPC) has long anchored supercomputing efforts in the country, and national initiatives continue to expand access. At the same time, major private Turning capacity constraints into strategic advantage investments, such as Microsoft’s multi- hundred-million-rand AI infrastructure expansion announced in 2025, are catalysing local capability building while also training tens of thousands in digital skills. But more than hardware investments, the key shift will be this: South Africa wins not by owning the most compute, but by using AI-driven simulation to amplify decision-making across sectors. This approach turns scarcity into strategic The solution: systemic CBM AI-driven CBM offers a rounded and proactive solution. For example, by embedding sensors to collect real-time data on temperature, vibration, pressure, and wear, CBM continuously monitors equipment health. Predictive analytics then identify issues before they escalate, enabling interventions only when necessary. This approach reduces downtime, minimises human error, and extends asset lifespans. Over time, CBM systems self-optimise by learning from new data points, creating a cycle of continuous improvement. Importantly, human judgment remains vital to complement AI insights, ensuring multi-layered decisions in complex environments. CBM offers measurable benefits such as: • Efficiency and uptime: predictive analytics reduce costs and downtime by 20%, according to the International Energy Agency. • Resource optimisation: according to a recent Schneider Electric report, early CBM implementation can result in up to a 40% reduction in on-site maintenance interventions and a 20% decrease in operational costs. • Sustainability: CBM reduces energy waste and extends equipment lifespans, thereby directly supporting carbon-
competitive advantage in the coming decade. Unlike global superpowers that invest heavily in sheer computing capacity, South Africa doesn’t need to be the largest computing market to lead in innovation. What matters today is how we apply computing to accelerate insight, discovery, and socio- economic progress. That’s where AI-accelerated simulation, combining high-performance computing (HPC) with machine intelligence, comes in. Instead of waiting hours or days for results, we can simulate complex scenarios in seconds, enabling faster decisions and innovation than traditional methods. The global surge in HPC & AI-driven simulation High-performance computing is no longer the exclusive domain of national labs. According to Future Market Insights, the global HPC market is projected to be worth around $60.2 billion in 2025 and to continue robust growth through the next decade, underscoring explosive demand for advanced computing in science, engineering, and AI workflows. Across industries, the AI-enhanced HPC market is also expanding quickly, driven by the need to simulate ever more complex data and models at speed. Yet, in many emerging economies, including South Africa, raw computing power alone is rarely sufficient. What holds greater strategic value is a simulation that turns limited infrastructure into accelerated insight. South Africa’s digital transformation is measurable South Africa remains one of the most digitally active economies on the continent. in infrastructure to meet AI’s growing demands; on the other hand, it still (often) relies on outdated maintenance methods to manage mission-critical equipment. But with rising energy demands, talent shortages, stricter sustainability regulations, and mounting downtime risks, change has become non- negotiable. Enter Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM), powered by AI and fast becoming a necessity for ensuring both competitiveness and resilience. Canninah Dladla, cluster president for English-speaking Africa at Schneider Electric, explores this topic further. There’s no doubt that time-based or reactive maintenance models have the potential to expose data centres to unnecessary downtime, inefficient resource use, higher costs, and compliance risks. Additionally, as AI workloads continue to drive demand for greater computational Why traditional maintenance falls short
reached nearly 76% of the population in 2025, with ongoing expansion of both mobile and fixed-broadband services. South Africa is also among the top four African countries capturing the majority of AI startup investment. These figures reveal a vibrant and growing ecosystem but also highlight constraints. According to Mastercard, infrastructure gaps persist, data centre capacity is limited compared with global hubs, and access to HPC resources remains uneven. This context, scarcity of compute and uneven infrastructure, is precisely why AI- accelerated simulation matters. From theory to impact: simulation where it counts Traditional HPC workloads, such as climate modelling or fluid dynamics, typically require vast clusters and long turnaround times. Emerging AI “solvers”, neural models trained on earlier simulation outputs, can replicate outcomes orders of magnitude faster, often running on a single GPU rather than a large supercomputer. In scientific settings, this has already transformed workflows around fusion plasma modelling and particle physics. South Africa can benefit in similarly tangible ways: • Resource-efficient innovation: Local engineering, manufacturing, and materials research can simulate product performance, stress tests, and failure scenarios before committing to expensive prototyping. This cuts costs and accelerates time-to-market for become costly. This is particularly true in sectors such as finance, healthcare, and e-commerce, where outages can cause severe reputational damage and financial loss. According to Uptime Institute, the average cost of IT downtime ranges from $6,000 to $9,000 per minute, with some outages exceeding $1 million. Talent shortages amplify the risk: half of operators (51%) reported difficulty in finding qualified candidates to fill their job openings for the third year running. In addition, Uptime Institute estimates, and based on 25 years of data, human error plays a role in more than 66% of data centre outages. Traditional maintenance typically suffers from three flaws: • Calendar-based servicing wastes resources and fails to prevent unexpected failures. • Contracts often cover only narrow equipment sets, not entire systems. • Technicians may lack the skills or connectivity to manage multi-vendor, multi-site ecosystems.
Dean Wolson of Lenovo Africa.
leverage: with efficient AI solvers, organisations can prioritise high-impact simulations, reduce energy consumption, and generate insight faster than competitors with larger but less flexible infrastructure.
Simulation as a competitive differentiator
The ability to explore millions of possible futures, whether for engineering designs, economic models, climate adaptation strategies, or healthcare interventions, gives South African leaders a new form of foresight. This is a data-driven glimpse of the probable future enabled by simulation speed and intelligence. South Africa’s strength has always been resilience and ingenuity. AI-accelerated simulation allows us to compute the future rather than wait for it, maximising scarce resources, unlocking new innovation pathways, and delivering measurable impact.
Enquiries: www.lenovo.com
AI-powered maintenance for future- ready data centres T he data centre marketplace is facing a conundrum of sorts: on the one hand, operators are now investing heavily power and more complex infrastructure, failures in innovative technologies
reduction targets. • Reliability: consistent performance and service continuity are maintained, even amid technician shortages. • Cybersecurity: continuous monitoring identifies anomalies early, reducing vulnerabilities and centralising infrastructure management to shrink attack surfaces. • Cost reduction: Compass Data Centres cut costs through AI-powered maintenance, with a shift to CBM leading to a 40% reduction in manual, on-site interventions and a 20% decrease in OPEX. A strategic imperative Future-ready data centres demand proactive strategies. Whether designing a new facility or upgrading legacy systems, integrating AI-powered CBM is critical. For new builds, embedding CBM from the design stage ensures seamless, data-driven operations from day one. For existing facilities, a phased rollout helps mitigate risks while transitioning infrastructure. With CBM, data centres can evolve into efficient, resilient, and sustainable facilities, ready to harness AI to optimise operations and drive innovation in an increasingly demanding digital world.
Enquiries: www.se.com/za/en
SPARKS ELECTRICAL NEWS
MARCH 2026
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