Sandton, South Africa – Siemens is positioning itself to play a bigger role in South Africa's next investment campaign, with the industrial technology group supporting infrastructure development in energy, water, transport and digitalization as the country looks to build on earlier investment commitments and unlock faster, more inclusive growth.
Speaking to CNBC Africa on the sidelines of the sixth South Africa Investment Conference in Sandton, Siemens Sub-Saharan Africa CEO Sabine Dall'Omo said the company's commitments are aligned with the conference's central themes of decarbonization, digitalization and diversification.
South Africa is aiming to build on approximately 1.5 trillion rand in commitments achieved during the first five years of its investment campaign, while also pursuing a new target of 2 trillion rand. Against that backdrop, Dell'Omo said Siemens sees a strong opportunity to support the modernization of the country's infrastructure while helping to expand industrial capacity and improve economic participation for historically disadvantaged communities.
“Our pledge is around infrastructure, to assist South Africa in the transformation,” Dell'Omo said. “We are working in the energy sector, especially delivering electricity to consumers and distribution networks, water networks, but also transportation and industrialization across the African continent.”
His comments come as there has been a material improvement in South Africa's energy outlook after years of blackouts. Dell'Omo attributed the decline in load shedding to policy reforms and increased market liberalization, arguing that allowing greater private participation has accelerated distribution and improved competitive dynamics.
According to Dall'Omo, one of the biggest changes in the power sector has been to open up the space for independent power producers and private companies to work alongside Eskom, rather than relying on a single dominant operator. That model can help improve speed, pricing and flexibility, he said.
“It's really the transformation and liberalization of the market, bringing in IPPs, bringing in private companies,” he said. “Having maybe 10 companies running in parallel gives speed, and speed gives competition, and competition helps manage pricing.”
He said the period of more than 300 days without load shedding in South Africa shows how quickly attitudes can change when investors are given policy certainty. For business, this message is important: a stable regulatory framework can unlock capital flows and drive rapid operational improvements in critical infrastructure sectors.
But while the power sector has shown progress, Dell'Omo warned that the water crisis remains more complex and underfunded. Unlike electricity, where the structure of the industry is relatively centralized, water involves a wider web of participants, including wholesale suppliers, municipalities, national authorities and private sector service providers.
He said this fragmentation makes coordination difficult and puts greater pressure on funding and institutional capacity. South Africa now needs to invest substantially in aging and inadequate water infrastructure, as well as upgrade technical skills across the sector.
Dall'Omo said one encouraging factor is that South Africa is not alone. Many developed countries have also underinvested in water systems and are now facing similar pressures, which has led to the development of new technologies that can help utilities manage assets more efficiently.
He pointed to digital tools that can improve revenue collection, reduce non-revenue water and identify leaks through pressure measurement and network monitoring systems. Such technologies could give municipalities and operators better visibility into failing infrastructure and help reduce losses, he said.
Nevertheless, he argued that technology alone would not solve the problem. Skill development will be equally important, especially in areas where technical expertise has not kept pace with operational demands.
“We don't have that many people who really have ability in this area,” Dell'Omo said. “So training people, exposing them to what's out there in the world, is really what we are also trying to do as Siemens to commit to South Africa and make a difference.”
Asked whether South Africa is ready for broader private sector participation in the water sector, Dall'Omo said the market is not yet as open as the energy sector, but momentum is growing. He highlighted public-private partnership models used in Europe and the Gulf, where private operators run water works or desalination plants under concession agreements before ultimately handing them back to public authorities.
There are already examples of that model in South Africa, he said, citing concession-based arrangements in areas such as Ballito near Durban and parts of Mpumalanga. In his view, those projects demonstrate that private participation can improve operational efficiency, although more needs to be done to scale this approach nationally.
For policy makers, Dall'Omo suggested that Eastern Europe offers useful lessons. After the end of the Cold War, many countries had to rebuild or significantly upgrade infrastructure systems and use partnership-based models over a period of several decades to do so. South Africa can study those examples to understand how to implement efficient infrastructure programs that also serve society at large, he said.
Beyond utilities, Siemens is also betting on Africa's digital economy as the foundation of industrial modernization. Dall'Omo said the company works with leading global technology firms, including Google, Meta, Microsoft, Vantage and Amazon Web Services, to access the cloud and data-center capabilities needed for advanced digital applications.
He welcomed recent investments in digital infrastructure, including AI-enabled network upgrades and data ecosystem investments, saying these developments create the backbone necessary for Siemens to deploy industrial digitalization solutions. The company's focus is not just on connectivity, he said, but on using fast, reliable digital infrastructure to improve service delivery, productivity and cost efficiency in industrial and infrastructure applications.
That productivity agenda is also linked to human capital. Dell'Omo emphasized that Siemens' investment approach goes beyond capital expenditure and includes long-term skills development. The company has approximately 40 partnerships with universities across Africa, giving students free access to Siemens software tools so they can graduate with practical experience of technologies used in industry.
Siemens is also trying to expand the pipeline beyond university graduates. Dell'Omo highlighted its partnership with UN Women on the African Girls Can Code initiative, which provides coding and cybersecurity training to school-age girls in several African countries. It aims to make youth more employable and create the future workforce for digital industries, he said.
For South Africa, where unemployment remains structurally high and the youth population continues to grow, the relationship between infrastructure investment and skills building may prove increasingly important. Dall'Omo's message was that successful investment is not just about financing projects, but about creating an ecosystem in which technology, policy certainty and talent development reinforce each other.
As South Africa pursues a new multi-trillion-rand investment target, Siemens is making it clear that it sees a long runway in the country – particularly where infrastructure improvements, digital transformation and social inclusion intersect.