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With the end of the year fast approaching, it is the season for the major IT conferences and events, with several of the players holding their annual October or November IT events.

Up first is Red Hat, with their annual Connect 2025 Johannesburg Summit tomorrow.

As has been the case in previous years, the summit is set to offer the opportunity to deep dive into a number of topics and connect with experts. This year, AI, hybrid cloud, and digital sovereignty are some of the topics that will be featured in discussions.

Taking place on October 9th at The Marriot in Melrose Arch, the event brings together enterprise leaders, industry experts, and partners to explore how new technologies are transforming businesses with Red Hat solutions.

The company explained that the summit also provides a platform for innovators and decision-makers to discuss the practical application of enterprise IT.

The event will feature keynote addresses, breakout sessions, and customer stories that highlight the capabilities of Red Hat platforms and solutions. With focus tracks on virtualization, automation, and AI at scale, the agenda offers a range of technical and strategic content. Key enterprise IT topics range from virtualization and modernization to cloud computing and digital sovereignty.

Understandably, AI will be top of the agenda and a major talking point. This comes as no surprise, as AI has certainly dominated tech headlines and trends this year.

Furthermore, Red Hat explained that the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) presents new opportunities and questions for enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa. After more than a decade of aligning IT strategies with business expectations, many leaders are now determining the best path for AI adoption. This includes reconciling legacy systems with new technologies and navigating the data and governance implications.

The company noted that Tthese considerations reflect the uncertainty many enterprise leaders face. As the industry focus shifts from training AI models to inference and unlocking their business value, organizations need a clear strategy to keep up with the latest advancements.

Cloud as foundation for innovation

But future innovation with AI is dependent on South African enterprises laying a solid, scalable foundation by modernising core infrastructure. This is essential for not just getting projects off the ground but also sustaining them through effective planning and resource management. Case in point: according to one Red Hat survey, while AI is a core strategic priority for 72% of organisations in the EMEA region, only 7% report their current AI investments are driving customer value at scale.

The challenge many enterprises face is translating investment into tangible business outcomes, all while retaining the consistency and control they need to build, deploy and manage cloud across all cloud environments and hardware.

For many organizations, the way forward is a hybrid approach. Backed by an open hybrid cloud strategy that uses multiple environments, enterprises can reduce risk in their AI adoption plans while retaining high levels of agility, flexibility, and scalability.

Furthermore, open hybrid cloud eliminates the potential for product incompatibilities while also reducing costs, two things that are critical for getting projects past the proof-of-concept stage. As cloud adoption across Sub-Saharan Africa continues to grow and public infrastructure becomes more prevalent, enterprises can seize the opportunity and build on the advancements they have already made.

The Digital Sovereignty imperative

In the era of AI, digital sovereignty is a critical consideration. Users, enterprises, and industries want to maintain control of their data while adhering to relevant local and international data sovereignty and regulatory compliance policies. These concerns are amplified with AI, creating a need for systems and solutions that prioritize agility, security, and transparency.

The company explained that digital sovereignty is a huge factor when companies are choosing to enable their AI workloads. Many may be wondering how to best integrate sovereign solutions into their existing IT environments, and with that comes a need for expertise in cloud computing and data management.

By enabling sovereign AI workloads across a hybrid cloud with trusted platforms, enterprises can remain competitive. Along with sovereignty, the company stressed that a trusted ecosystem of partners is essential for sovereignty to work at scale. The company stressed that by recognizing the value of open, interoperable technology and working with vendors that enable improved data control, security, and transparency, South African enterprises can innovate with confidence.

For more information, visit www.redhat.com/en/summit/connect/emea/johannesburg-2025.