Sourced records of Chinese AI deployments across the Global South and the Middle East

In 2019, Huawei Cloud launched a local hyperscale cloud data center in South Africa. By 2024, it had established three data center availability zones/locations in Johannesburg, providing cloud and AI computing services for government, finance, education, telecom, media, e-commerce, and other industries. The company regards growing AI adoption as an important driver of cloud spending by South African enterprises.

In 2026, ZTE and MTN South Africa validated and expanded AIR RAN EnergyTurbo on a commercial network in Cape Town. EnergyTurbo is an AI-native closed-loop energy intelligence solution that predicts load based on traffic patterns, site energy strategies, and real-time service demand, then dynamically controls base-station energy saving to reduce power consumption while maintaining user experience.

In June-July 2020, XAG P20 agricultural drones ran a commercial sugarcane-ripening trial at Seafield Farm in the Midlands South region of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, applying ripener along pre-set autonomous flight routes. Drone-ripened areas showed a 1% increase in recoverable value versus helicopter-applied ripener. The farm owner had purchased XAG drones for his own 200ha cane field and for neighbouring growers.

Hikvision built remote video-surveillance and video-content-analysis (VCA) solutions for some substations of South Africa's national power utility Eskom. Intelligent perimeter/line detection and centralized monitoring identify theft, vandalism, and other risks to protect critical electricity infrastructure.