South Africans have a long tradition of doing more with less and that resourcefulness may be our greatest competitive advantage in the coming decade.
By Dean Wolson, GM of Infrastructure Solutions Group at Lenovo Africa
Unlike global superpowers that invest heavily in sheer compute 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 for results over hours or days, we can simulate complex scenarios in seconds, enabling decisions and innovation far faster 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 , globally, the HPC market is projected to be worth around $60,2-billion in 2025 and continuing robust growth through the next decade, underscoring the 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 simulation that turns limited infrastructure into accelerated insight.
SA’s digital transformation is measurable
South Africa remains one of the most digitally active economies on the continent. 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 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 South African innovators.
- Health & 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 & logistics – South Africa’s economy depends on 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 computer overhead.
- Climate resilience – Simulation models that predict drought patterns, water resource fluctuations and renewable energy scenarios could inform adaptive policy making. Rather than waiting for centuries-scale data, AI-enhanced HPC provides highly probable futures in accessible timeframes.
Turning capacity constraints into strategic advantage
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 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 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.