There is a working relationship that exists between prioritising national interest and being regarded as value-adding participants in the global economy. The two can co-exist without friction or having to compromise.
We can pursue global standards and best practice while addressing material domestic issues that are common with developing states like ours. Much can be learnt from our energy policy during the height of those debates.
We need to pursue objectives that promote our interest, in the quest to develop our economy and to build a better life for all South Africans. The current global landscape makes this ever more crucial, particularly as major developed economies are pursuing digital sovereignty.
Sean Fleming of the World Economic Forum says: “Digital sovereignty (including) cyber sovereignty, technological sovereignty and data sovereignty refer to the ability to have control over your own digital destiny ― the data, hardware and software that you rely on and create.”
What’s paramount is the autonomy, control, self-reliance and assurance on the technology infrastructure of a state in its entirety.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a massive disruption of international supply chains for everything from vehicles to consumer electronics, due to the shortage of semiconductors. Companies and countries who had enough inventory of these resources prioritised themselves, serving as a painful reminder that critical components are not always a guarantee.
We have witnessed some government administrations weaponise and leverage the dominance they enjoy on global technology products and services markets and using such influence as part of their bargaining tools.
All this happens when China for instance has been intensifying its campaign to develop more domestic capacity on the digital front, with security risk concerns often cited as key motives.
France, while not attempting to overhaul and realise total transformation of their current structure, is debating building strong alternatives, capacity and competing on critical areas with the right investment.
The Financial Times reports that France is pushing millions of state workers to use home-grown platforms as opposed to platforms like Zoom.
In their quest to cover lost ground on the semiconductor race, the US Congress introduced new legislation, the CHIPS and Science Act (also CHIPS Act of 2022), which according to Stanford University Explainer is a tool for the American government to spend $280bn focused on boosting the US’s scientific research and advanced semiconductor manufacturing capacity to boost US competitiveness against China, including allocating $52bn in subsidies and tax credits for chip-manufacturing companies.
While this doesn’t significantly change the semiconductor global market share picture, it positions the US much more favourably than where it had found itself and puts them in a more agile position to respond to future seismic developments.
What is strongly evident about the current global dynamics, and if there are to be any lessons from the responses of major powers, is that South Africa needs to strengthen its position regarding building its own solid technology infrastructure.
If our public services, identity systems, health data and key networks reside on infrastructure we do not control, our sovereignty becomes conditional. Our laws must be explicit about what counts as strategic.
The call is not for South Africa to copy the playbook of superpowers but to not treat critical digital infrastructure as a routine procurement line-item.
We already have building blocks, including the National Policy on Data and Cloud 2024, but we lack a single, enforceable framework that defines strategic digital infrastructure, clarifies ownership and control expectations, and sets binding rules for security, continuity of essential services, data governance, and the protection of South Africa’s long-term technological sovereignty.
This is about risk management. If our public services, identity systems, health data and key networks reside on infrastructure we do not control, our sovereignty becomes conditional. Our laws must be explicit about what counts as strategic.
The answers to these questions are within our competence, as we already enjoy technological skills and capacity that can create the solutions. However, without the correct legislative framework as an enabler, the process will be met with more challenges than necessary.
South Africa needs a clear policy position on digital sovereignty that considers the nuanced market realities that shape our environment, because without deliberate design, black-owned information and communication technology (ICT) firms will remain marginalised participants.
Government itself has acknowledged structural problems that prevent entry for SMMEs and tech startups, supplier development that is not used sufficiently to transform value chains, and funding models that do not promote transformation.
The Competition Commission’s Online Intermediation Platforms Market Inquiry reported a “distinct lack of participation by historically disadvantaged persons in online platform markets”, warning that barriers to participation could deepen exclusion as the economy shifts online. The same inquiry notes that entry and expansion of new platforms require funding, underscoring how finance constraints can block participation in digital markets.
Black-owned entities, while demonstrating their capacity in the domestic ICT sectors, are still faced with systematic challenges. Capital, banks, development financial institutions, private equity and venture capital firms are out of reach for many players.
In South Africa, even where well-intentioned progressive policies exist on paper, execution often fails the historically marginalised, so the government needs to approach these interventions with a clear goal in mind.
More importantly, the private and public sectors need a paradigm shift, with the appreciation that South African ICT firms can grow into globally competitive players if we stop treating them as peripheral suppliers that are considered only when international solutions do not exist, especially in the enterprise resource planning markets, and start treating them as strategic national assets crucial for our entire infrastructure. For digital sovereignty in the South African context to succeed, it must be accompanied by inclusion of those historically disadvantaged.
In 1993, the US’s then-secretary of defence Les Aspin convened leading defence contractors in a meeting. This was a pivotal moment in US history due to the restructuring and monumental changes, such as the mergers and consolidations in the defence industry that followed. The meeting was later nicknamed the “Last Supper”.
Our country at this point, requires its own equivalent, with a well-defined national direction and a compact between the government and key private sector players to amalgamate our efforts for a technologically stronger South Africa to emerge globally.
Jeremiah Klaas, CEO of BlueStone EAM and president of Black Technology Forum
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