This is how the Chinese Huawei sneaks into North Africa. Cesi Report
Huawei will invest $430 million in building a data center in North Africa. The in-depth analysis of the Center for International Studies ( CeSI )
During the Huawei Connect event on September 20-22 in Shanghai, the Chinese telecommunications giant announced a new investment plan in North Africa , which includes all 28 African countries located above the equator.
HUAWEI'S PLAN FOR NORTH AFRICA
The plan, called “Intelligent Future”, plans to invest 430 million dollars to build a data processing center, another 200 million to support 1,300 distributors and 200 local technology partners in the region and 30 million in a training program in North Africa for 100 technology specialists and 10,000 local developers in artificial intelligence and associated technologies.
The cloud center, in fact, will support applications driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and language models in Arabic, which will involve local partners. This initiative follows the interest that Huawei has already widely shown in the Middle East, North Africa and the Persian Gulf. In fact, on September 4, the Chinese company opened another cloud data center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in light of a memorandum of understanding signed last February, which provides for investments similar to those promised for Northern Africa.
WHY IS CHINA INTERESTED IN NORTH AFRICA?
North Africa is a key region of China's interests, which has in Huawei a fundamental tool to expand its influence in the area.
The strategic position of the region between Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean has meant that Beijing's presence has gradually increased, especially in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In fact, MENA was the region that received the largest share of BRI investments in 2022 (around 57%), from which North Africa benefited in particular for infrastructure and interconnection projects. The plan announced by Huawei could bring benefits to both parties: on the one hand, China, through the telecommunications company, could re-establish itself not only on an economic level, but also as a technological model, also positioning itself as an alternative to Western influence; on the other, North African countries would benefit from investments in a sector that still needs to be developed, also being able to offer new opportunities for an increasingly specialized workforce.
MOROCCO OR EGYPT
Although it has not yet been announced where the data processing center will be built, there are two possible countries: Morocco and Egypt. Both key areas in world maritime trade, given the presence of two of the most important global trade hubs, Tangier and Suez, the two countries are seeing their weight in Chinese interests grow. Morocco, the first West African country to sign the memorandum of understanding on the BRI in 2017, has seen several Chinese investments in the logistics development of the port of Tangier, and in the Moroccan king's “Mohammed VI Tanger Tech City” project, which would see host the regional hub of Huawei, which had been entrusted with the creation of the 5G network in the country. Egypt, on the other hand, is a fundamental partner for China: the Suez Canal is an essential stage in the passage of any Asian goods that transit by sea. Historically very close, after 2011 China continued to have close relations with Egypt, which has become China's largest trading partner among North African countries.
In fact, while US and European investments decreased, Chinese investments increased from 2017 to 2022 (+317%). The creation of a cloud data center in one of these two countries, therefore, could create an even closer link with China, guaranteeing them a greater influx of skills especially in the field of digital technology.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/huawei-nordafrica/ on Sun, 15 Oct 2023 05:50:20 +0000.