Telecommunications operators across Africa are directing billions of rand into network upgrades, high-capacity fibre backhaul, and 5G rollouts.
However, new research from Cloudera suggests that this heavy physical infrastructure build still sits on fragile data foundations upon which investment returns depend.
Locally, massive infrastructure commitments are being made, such as Vodacom’s R85,2-billion “Vision 2030” programme and MTN’s continued network transformation with plans to scale AI-driven operations, extend 5G coverage, and modernise its core network.
These large projects showcase the scale of the capital deployments at play – and the size of the expected ROIs. Stretching across the continent, these projects will increasingly form the high-speed pipelines required to feed Africa’s rising appetite for AI.
But Cloudera’s research has highlighted the contrast between the massive physical network investments and the underlying data friction that threatens returns and could hamper telcos ability to fully leverage these major advancements.
The findings, published in Cloudera’s Data Readiness Index 2026, show that while regional enterprises are investing aggressively in infrastructure, they are hitting significant operational walls with regards to data accessibility, performance, and governance – and this is undermining telecommunication digital transformation efforts.
Key findings in the Index highlight a critical need for the industry to double down on Private AI in the Network-strategy to close these gaps and unlock competitive advantage. Private AI refers to the deployment of artificial intelligence systems within a controlled environment where data privacy and security are maintained throughout the AI lifecycle.
Unlike public AI models that process data in shared or external environments, private AI ensures that data remains within an organisation’s own infrastructure – whether on-site or in a private cloud. This approach is particularly beneficial for industries with strict regulatory requirements, such as healthcare, finance, and government sectors.
According to the regional breakdowns of the study, an overwhelming 90% of EMEA organisations plan to increase their cloud spending – significantly outstripping the global average of 65%. Yet, while 89% of EMEA IT leaders claim they have complete visibility into where their data resides, 42% admit that complicated access requirements and processes act as a primary barrier to utilising that data.
This access friction represents a significant bottleneck for South African operators trying to deploy real-time AI for predictive network maintenance, automated fraud detection, and customer experience optimisation. In essence, operators are building high-speed highways, but the data cargo running over them remains siloed and effectively throttled.
Globally, the index reveals that 60% of telecommunications leaders cannot access the exact data required to make critical operational decisions.
In addition, integration remains a major hurdle. Only 34% of EMEA organisations report that their data sources are fully integrated across their hybrid environments. The remaining 66% operate with fragmented data pockets, creating latency issues and driving up public cloud egress fees – a critical concern for South African organisations exposed to volatile currency movements.
“South African telecommunications operators are successfully scaling their physical networks to handle AI-scale workloads, but physical readiness is only half the battle,” says Athul Prasad, global director: AI industry solutions, telecoms, media and entertainment at Cloudera.
“Visibility over your data estate is not the same as utility. If local operators cannot quickly and securely access, integrate, and govern their data across private and public clouds, their multi-billion rand AI initiatives risk delivering poor results. To solve this, operators must move away from legacy, siloed architectures and adopt unified hybrid data platforms in parallel with infrastructure expansion – they are two sides of the same coin.”
Data governance represents the final, critical barrier to scaling AI securely in South Africa. The research indicates that only 26% of EMEA IT leaders believe their enterprise data is fully governed. For local operators subject to strict Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) mandates, deploying AI models on poorly governed datasets introduces unacceptable compliance, security, and reputational risks.
Fortunately, there is a strong local appetite to resolve this misalignment. The study shows that 96% of EMEA organisations are very willing to adopt new, modern governance frameworks to improve data readiness.
Cloudera urges South African telecommunications providers to focus on a “Private AI” strategy. By bringing AI models directly to where the data is stored – rather than moving massive datasets across public clouds – operators can protect data sovereignty, satisfy POPIA requirements, and completely avoid cloud egress costs.
The global study was conducted by Cloudera in partnership with Researchscape, surveying 1 270 IT leaders across the US, EMEA and APAC regions in early 2026, including 312 respondents in the EMEA region.