Scale and security the big AI focus at next month’s Dell Technologies Forum

Next month, a regular fixture on the South African events calendar takes place in the form of Dell Technologies Forum 2026, once agin returning to the Kyalami Convention Centre on 3rd November.

In recent years, many of the presentations and conversations at the event have focused on AI, and 2026 will be no different.

That said, organisers have outlined that there will be some changes, particularly when it comes to maturity and approaches to AI implementation locally.

“The Forum comes as AI moves rapidly from experimentation into mainstream enterprise strategy. IDC forecasts that AI spending across EMEA will reach $319 billion in 2026, growing 19.2% year on year and more than three times faster than overall IT spending,” shared Dell Technologies with Hypertext.

“For South African organisations, this shift is creating new demands around infrastructure, data, security, governance and workplace technology as businesses look to move AI projects from pilot programmes into production,” it added in a release.

According to Marc Layne (pictured below), sales director at Dell Technologies South Africa, the focus is increasingly moving from what AI can do to what organisations need in place to deploy it effectively.

“AI adoption has entered a new phase. For organisations in South Africa, the priority is no longer exploring what AI could make possible, but making sure the infrastructure, data, devices, security and governance foundations are ready to support it at scale,” he explained.

“As AI becomes more deeply embedded in business operations, organisations also need to think carefully about how they maintain control over their data, strengthen cyber resilience and modernise their technology environments without adding unnecessary complexity,” he continued.

At Dell Technologies Forum Johannesburg, the company pointed out that one of the other major themes will be scaling AI in real-world business environments, including the infrastructure and data architectures required to support increasingly demanding AI and analytics workloads.

Added to this, The Forum will examine sovereign AI and trusted data, which is an area becoming increasingly important as organisations consider where their data is stored, how it is governed, and how AI systems can be deployed while meeting privacy, security, and regulatory requirements.

There are some other notable themes and presentations scheduled for the day, with the full agenda already available to view online.

Registrations are still open for this year’s Dell Technologies Forum, and the company is urging those interested in attending, to find out more details at its dedicated portal.