Pan African Data Centre Exhibition and Conference 2024 points to intelligent era

Data center investment, planning, construction, and AI-powered solutions were the topic of discussion at this year’s, Pan African Data Centres Exhibition and Conference, as Huawei among others eyes South Africa as solid ground to invest in with a plan to increase data speed, security, and overall cloud reliability which includes next-generation AI.

The 2024 Pan African Data Centers Exhibition and Conference kicked off on Tuesday, to welcome industry experts roped in to showcase various technological solutions while discussing industry insights.

The benefit will not only be reliable infrastructure to support a myriad of industries, ranging from healthcare, mining, agriculture, and others, but we find new industries are in the pipeline as a result of an evolving technological landscape on the fast track to ushering Africa well into an intelligent era.

According to Roc Bai, Vice Huawei Cloud Southern Africa, the plan included redefining the retail and e-commerce market while looking into diversified computing for a smarter, greener Africa.

Discussing the impact of AI, Bai said the vision was to build secure AI cloud solutions to enable a smarter AI future intended to not only forecast information using cloud systems but to open the door to an ecosystem of reliable infrastructure.

He touched on some of the challenges they faced when it comes to increasing access to digital solutions. These include internet service disruptions and difficulties with cloud access.

Bai tabled solutions like providing cloud infrastructure that will cover the whole continent, creating hybrid solutions that provide reliable data localization, and creating a cloud industry that addresses unique industry needs.

Building reliable data centers

How to build reliable data centers, the layout of data centers in Africa, challenges, and the preferred solutions were some of the topics discussed at the conference as experts paced to exploit the advantages of AI to fully exploit data centers.

Data centers will allow storage and networking capabilities that power innovative technologies like AI, but as innovations increase so will the energy consumption of data centres.

Building the data centre of the future will require more efficient cooling systems and more efficient energy use to minimize environmental
impacts.

Huawei’s Cui Hong, Director of Data Centre Integration, Solution Sales department noted how there were challenges in the construction of data centers in Africa, yet highlighted how Huawei’s infrastructure was equipped with FusionBlock, disaster recovery management operation assistance including a data migration option which provided the all scenario data center service solution to help customers build a solid and intelligent foundation.

AI models are developing at a rapid pace, and this means massive computing power requirements. Large amounts of data will be generated and transmitted requiring better solutions as data becomes one of the most valuable assets within any organization.

One solution is Huawei’s infrastructure architecture F2F2X, a primary storage solution to backup and archive data.

The solution comes as a reliable storage facility where data can be stored and maintained effectively.

AI solutions

Bai unpacked Pangu AI models as a contender language model intended to provide solutions, that could provide industry-specific solutions across mining with smart city management and accurate weather forecasting.

“In the AI era, Huawei will continue to work with our customers and ecosystem partners to explore sustainable development. This will help customers grow their technological capacity, and innovate to
find solutions to pressing challenges,” Bai added.

The discussions

The Pan African Data Centres Exhibition and Conference looked at cloud solutions, and data centers as the necessary foundation into an intelligent and thriving future.

Green and sustainable development of digital infrastructures which would be fueled by technical innovation was the intended mission as industry leaders discussed how to build green, flexible, and intelligently secure data centers.

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