Honor's Fred Zhou brought goosebumps while showcasing the future of smartphones. During the keynote address at Africatech, taking place in Cape Town recently, he teased an AI-infused small robot that nestles into a smartphone of the future, and interacts with users as they walked through a city, engaged with friends, and choose their wardrobe.

The moment punctuated Zhou's keynote address at AfricaTech, taking place in Cape Town this week, as he explained the company's ambitions to become the top smartphone brand in South Africa while highlighting the success the company has racked up to date.

These included a significant reach of 250 million active devices worldwide, despite being a relatively young (five years running) company.

Zhou enthused that Honor became a top-four brand in the continent during Q2 of 2025. ''In Malaysia, Honor is ranked within the top two, and in South Africa, after just three years of rapid growth, the company is now the second-largest handset maker in the country as of Q2,'' he added.

As much as the topics at the AfricaTech Festival centred around AI, Zhou stressed that Honor's approach is rooted in human-centricity, combining reason, passion, and ethics with technology-driven innovation, design, and ecosystem development. ''Our ultimate goal is to enhance people’s lives with greater wisdom, laughter, and joy,'' he explained. All of these, I noted are human qualities - none of them can be generated by an algorithm alone.

During his keynote, he further unpacked the company's vision and outlined the path the company is taking to create digitally enabled societies.

''The first step is ensuring access to AI devices for everyone, as the first step in building an AI-driven world is to provide intelligent handsets. Secondly, we want to collaborate openly with global partners, since building an intelligent ecosystem requires cooperation rather than a closed system.

Thirdly, we are striving towards an intelligent world where humans and robots coexist, contributing to the development of the AI era,'' he continued.

These three steps are encapsulated in what Honor calls its Alpha strategy.

With this commitment, Honor plans to invest $10 billion in AI technologies over the next five years, working with partners to build an open, cooperative, value-sharing AI device ecosystem worldwide.

In line with the thread running through his keynote address of navigating the AI era with collaboration and cooperation, Zhou also explained that Honor viewed itself as the bridge between South Africa and China.

''In the past two years, Honor has donated devices worth over two million to communities across South Africa in partnership with local NPOs, helping to expand digital access countrywide. We are committed to continuing these efforts and supporting the nation’s journey toward digital inclusion,'' he stressed.

But bringing AI to the African population through more affordable devices is only part of how Honor aims to bridge the divide. The company also views sports and arts as being cultural bridges too.

Zhou explained this is why Honor became the official technology device sponsor for Bafana Bafana, joking that since then, the soccer team has enjoyed continued success.

Zhou also noted that the company's Honor Talent program, launched last summer, is intended to help discover and support local talent, especially in the arts. ''This initiative aims to showcase local artists on the global stage, and we are proud to have a South African winner from the Eastern Cape whose work is now gaining international recognition,'' he added.

To me it seemed as an essential reminder that even as AI continues to evolve as an exponential pace, and is quickly reshaping industries, the human touch is an important, even critical, counterbalance.

It also set the stage for the further conversations I had with the company about this topic, and fuelled my sense that the year ahead will be grappling with how AI and humanity can be exalted simultaneously.