The end of the year has crept up on us already, and we're closing off 2025 with a topical year-end edition of EngineerIT.
Energy is a significant focus in this issue. André de Ruyter opens the conversation with a clear view of what delay has cost the country and where cautious optimism may still be justified. We also look at how businesses are responding to persistent price pressures through solar-plus-storage solutions, and why the growing rush into small-scale embedded generation needs stronger standards to keep staff, customers, and networks safe.
Digital resilience sits alongside energy as a critical theme. Our cover story with Africa Data Centres unpacks how South Africa can strengthen its digital backbone and build systems that continue operating even when individual components fail. Public-facing services, industrial networks and national infrastructure all depend on this stability.
Automation and manufacturing also take the spotlight, with local companies demonstrating that capability on the continent is shifting. Quantum research, showcased through experiments-on-a-chip, continues to blur the line between science lab and real-world application.
Cybersecurity remains a national pressure point, with South Africa facing increasingly coordinated digital attacks. Healthcare’s relationship with AI comes under the microscope, especially as practitioners weigh practical benefits against ethical boundaries. And in our look at machine self-awareness, we examine what happens when the tools we build begin to behave in ways we didn’t fully anticipate.
It’s a substantial 30+ page edition, bringing together the people, technologies and decisions shaping South Africa’s engineering and energy landscape.
As always, our aim is to keep you connected to the ideas that matter, and the systems that carry us forward.
Read the full issue for free HERE.
