Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 25 | Page 7

NEWS South Africa urged to invest in high- performance computing skills S outh Africa has been urged to invest heavily in the development of a skilled high-performance computing generation to avoid missing out on the opportunities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Addressing delegates at the annual conference of the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) in Cape Town, the Director- General of Science and Technology, Dr Phil Mjwara, said that the core of the Fourth Industrial Revolution was the emergence of cyber-physical systems, based upon our ability to collect massive amounts of data, manipulate and analyse them efficiently, and transfer them fast and securely. Dr Mjwara said South Africa was at the forefront of the development of the first real-life implementations of quantum cryptography and was now spearheading the field of Quantum Machine Learning. In addition, most big players in the IT sector were exploring the potential of quantum computing, and a vibrant start-up scene was emerging globally. “While these are extremely complex challenges, analysis suggests that Digital Transformation has the potential to make a positive contribution, if we can get certain things right,” said Dr Mjwara. “To exploit the opportunities of the Digital Transformation, companies will be forced to rethink and innovate their production processes. They will have to find ways to integrate data, cloud computing, robotics, 3D printing and simulation, among others.” ///////////////// Liquid Telecom to establish multi0billion Rand 4G network in South Africa L iquid Telecom South Africa, part of the leading pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom, has announced that it will establish a multi-billion Rand 4G network in the country where wholesale roaming services will be made available across Liquid Telecom’s network nationwide. almost 70,000km in length and linked to more than 600 towns and cities in 13 countries. This includes the recent completion of Liquid Telecom’s award winning ‘Cape to Cairo’ network which represents the first direct land-based terrestrial fibre link from the two cities. “This milestone builds on a remarkable year for Liquid Telecom,” added Nic Rudnick, Group CEO of Liquid Telecom. “I am encouraged that the momentum will continue into 2019 with South African operators having access to wholesale roaming services across our network for the first time.” “This is an exciting development which will enable us to provide Mobile Network Operators and ISPs with open access to our mobile 4G network,” said Liquid Telecom South Africa CEO Reshaad Sha. “Using our 1800MHz spectrum, the network will handle 4G mobile data traffic to meet the needs of the most demanding users across the country.” Liquid Telecom has been investing heavily across the continent where it operates Africa’s largest independent fibre network that is www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 7