ITLawCo’s written submission on the Draft South Africa National AI Policy (Notice 3880 of 2026), supported by SATECI.
By Nathan-Ross Adams, Managing Director, ITLawCo · Supported by the South African Technology and Economic Competitiveness Initiative (SATECI) · Jurisdiction: South Africa
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Submitter | ITLawCo |
| Supported by | South African Technology and Economic Competitiveness Initiative (SATECI) |
| Filed with | Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) |
| Filed on | TBC |
| Responding to | Government Gazette No. 54477, Notice 3880 of 2026 (10 April 2026) |
| Signatory | Nathan-Ross Adams, Managing Director, ITLawCo |
| Contact | support@itlawco.com |
Full submission: publishing shortly The complete written submission is being prepared for public release and will be published on this page as soon as it is ready. For advance notice, email support@itlawco.com.
A governance framework without a grand strategy is a framework for managed decline. If South Africa does not act on AI strategically, its mineral wealth will finance another nation’s intelligence infrastructure, its data will train another nation’s models, and its citizens will engage with AI systems calibrated to other cultures, other legal systems, and other economic assumptions.
The window for shaping rather than receiving the AI age is open — and it is closing.
South Africa has the means to be a shaper, not a recipient: the world’s largest platinum-group metal reserves, the continent’s highest AI governance ranking, a constitutional democracy with a sophisticated Bill of Rights, and the institutional sophistication of a G20 democracy. What the Draft Policy currently lacks is the intellectual architecture connecting those means to a coherent theory of victory.
The submission advances one master argument and ten specific amendments, built on three strategic pillars.
Translate South Africa’s institutional advantage into continental standard-setting and global influence — making the South African approach to AI governance the reference point against which other African nations develop their frameworks, and carrying that influence into the African Union, the United Nations, the OECD, and the ITU. South Africa’s voluntary dismantling of its nuclear weapons programme gives it a specific, underused credential in the governance of civilisationally dangerous technologies.
Convert the platinum-group metal endowment into AI-infrastructure equity rather than raw mineral export. PGMs are critical inputs to the semiconductors, fuel cells, and clean-energy systems that power global AI compute. South Africa sits upstream of the most concentrated bottleneck in the global AI supply chain. The policy should treat this as a geopolitical leverage question, not a mining one.
Choose two or three sectors where South Africa will pursue genuine global excellence rather than spreading limited resources uniformly. The proposed candidates — Mining AI, Financial Crime AI, and African-language AI — are each grounded in a structural advantage no other African state possesses to the same degree.
Each amendment is designed as a lever of control — a structural mechanism that, if activated, changes the system’s behaviour, not just its stated intentions.
The submission speaks to four overlapping audiences, each with a direct interest in how the final National AI Policy is architected.
ITLawCo is a South African ICT law and public policy company advising businesses, employers, and institutions on data protection, digital regulation, AI governance, and technology transactions. Its work includes direct engagement with AI deployment decisions in financial services, healthcare, and the public sector — giving it implementation experience, not only doctrinal analysis, of the regulatory environment these amendments address.
The South African Technology and Economic Competitiveness Initiative (SATECI) is an independent, non-partisan strategic body dedicated to South Africa’s long-term competitiveness in technology, economic power, and national resilience. SATECI bridges government, industry, academia, and civil society around a coherent strategic agenda — producing rigorous analysis, convening the leaders needed to act on it, and engaging directly with policy processes. Its five focus areas are artificial intelligence and emerging technology; national security and strategic resilience; economic competitiveness and industrial policy; Africa-wide strategy and continental leadership; and critical minerals and supply chain sovereignty. The overlap with this submission’s three pillars — governance leadership, mineral leverage, and sectoral concentration — is what made the partnership a natural one.
The Draft Policy’s foundational commitments — intergenerational equity, human-centred deployment, constitutional alignment, inclusive economic growth — are sound and must be preserved. What they require is a grand strategy capable of executing them. That is the work this submission is designed to do.
The Draft South Africa National Artificial Intelligence Policy is a policy instrument published by the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies on 10 April 2026 as Notice 3880 of 2026 in Government Gazette No. 54477. It sets out South Africa’s proposed governance approach to artificial intelligence, including institutional architecture, regulatory mechanisms, and sectoral priorities. Written submissions were invited from the public.
The submission was prepared and filed by ITLawCo, a South African ICT law and public policy company, with the support of the South African Technology and Economic Competitiveness Initiative (SATECI), an independent non-partisan strategic body focused on South Africa’s long-term competitiveness in technology, economic power, and national resilience. Nathan-Ross Adams, Managing Director of ITLawCo, is the named signatory.
The central argument is that South Africa needs a grand strategy for AI, not merely a governance framework. A grand strategy — in the academic sense — is a state’s theory of how it will use its means to achieve its ends. The submission argues that South Africa possesses the means (PGM reserves, institutional sophistication, constitutional democracy, G20 standing) but that the Draft Policy does not yet supply the intellectual architecture to deploy them.
The submission proposes that the Forum be established by statute with binding cross-sector guidance powers, rather than as a consultative body convened by the DCDT. Where two or more regulators cannot agree on a cross-sector AI governance matter, the DCDT would issue a binding determination by way of a casting vote.
ITLawCo recommends that the DCDT initiate an amendment to section 71 of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 to extend automated-decision-making protections to decisions where automated processing is a material input, whether or not the final decision is made by a human. The current “based solely on automated processing” trigger excludes most real-world AI-assisted decision-making.
The complete written submission will be published on this page as soon as it has been prepared for public release following filing with the DCDT. Readers can register for notification by emailing support@itlawco.com.
The African Union Executive Council endorsed the Continental AI Strategy in Accra in July 2024. Phase I (2025–2026) is focused on governance frameworks, national AI strategies, resource mobilisation, and capacity building. South Africa’s Draft National AI Policy is a direct response to this Phase I obligation, and the submission argues that the final policy should be framed explicitly as a contribution to the continental architecture, not as a standalone national exercise.
The submission is a public document filed with the DCDT. Policymakers, academics, journalists, and practitioners are welcome to cite and quote it. A suggested citation will be published alongside the full document.
We have requested that the DCDT acknowledge the submission, place it on the public record, and address it in its published summary of submissions before the final policy is submitted to Cabinet. ITLawCo and SATECI have committed to publishing a first post-implementation assessment within 12 months of the final policy’s adoption.
The Draft National AI Policy will shape how South African citizens and institutions encounter artificial intelligence for a generation. Whether that encounter strengthens the constitutional order, or erodes it, will be determined by the architecture adopted over the coming months. This submission is our contribution to getting that architecture right.
For media enquiries or questions about the submission, contact ITLawCo at support@itlawco.com.
This page summarises a written submission filed with a government department. It is not legal advice. Organisations seeking advice on how the Draft Policy or the proposed amendments may affect their operations should obtain tailored counsel.
About the author. Nathan-Ross Adams is the Managing Director of ITLawCo, a South African ICT law and public policy company advising businesses, employers, and institutions on data protection, digital regulation, AI governance, and technology transactions.
