For many young people in the mining towns of North West province, employment opportunities via internet access remain out of reach. Yet these are the places where the minerals needed to power every search query, artificial intelligence (AI) prompt and cloud upload are extracted.

Among these minerals are platinum group metals (PMGs) mined in communities like Marikana and Kroondal. South Africa holds the world’s largest known PGM reserves, accounting for about 88% of the global supply, according to the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources.

The most important PGMs in this chain are platinum, palladium, ruthenium and iridium, which have become central to the clean energy transition, supporting systems that power data centres, the physical infrastructure behind the cloud, the internet and AI.

Most of the towns’ digital infrastructure sits far from the mines, with investment programmes going to places that already have good connectivity. The communities where the minerals for this infrastructure are mined say they are left out, with no help to ensure that they share in the benefits of digital development.

Teraco, which is owned by the American firm Digital Realty, has a campus in Johannesburg that is South Africa’s largest data centre. Its communications department told Oxpeckers that its community investment programmes are directed at the areas where it operates – Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban – rather than mining communities in the North West.

But many of these cities already benefit from extensive fibre infrastructure and reliable mobile connectivity. By contrast, communities living in Marikana and Kroondal continue to rely largely on LTE networks with limited fibre rollout.

Data centres are expanding rapidly globally and in South Africa, with more than 50 already in operation, mostly in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and new ones are being built to meet the growing digital demand.

These centres are among the country’s fastest-growing energy users, with a combined capacity of 350 megawatts – which is less than 1% of the global total. According to the International Energy Agency, global data centre energy consumption could double by 2030, and local data centres are already feeling the pressure of resource constraints.

To secure more reliable and low-carbon energy sources, they are turning to renewable options, testing or investing in hydrogen fuel cells and backup systems that support solar, wind and other clean technologies.

As South Africa’s digital economy expands, demand for PGMs in clean energy systems grows, highlighting a deeper dependence on the communities where these minerals are mined.

The same critical minerals extracted from the North West are central to South Africa’s Just Energy Transition (JET). Yet policy discussions around the transition have so far concentrated almost entirely on coal-dependent regions such as Mpumalanga, where the debate focuses on power station closure, worker re-skilling and economic diversification.

PGM-mining communities producing the inputs for that same transition have largely fallen outside of that conversation, according to a recent report by the Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies.

Companies in the digital supply chain increasingly market themselves as drivers of sustainable development, yet the communities supplying the minerals that make that development possible continue to face basic barriers to digital inclusion, A report by the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) says this raises hard questions about what a just transition should actually look like.

Most of the young people Oxpeckers met in Marikana and Kroondal own smartphones, but that does not mean they have meaningful internet access.

Many rely on expensive mobile data, unstable network coverage or public Wi-Fi hotspots that are difficult to access, unsafe to use or located inside private facilities.

Youth unemployment remains high across Bojanala District Municipality, which includes Marikana and Kroondal, with an unemployment rate of 27.6%, according to the municipality.

For these unemployed young people, purchasing mobile data is often unaffordable, turning connectivity into yet another barrier to finding employment.

“There is a high rate of youth unemployment here. How can young people afford data to search for job opportunities when they have no income?” said Karabo Molebatsi, secretary of the Marikana branch of the Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA).

In Marikana, many residents gather outside a bank outlet to access free Wi-Fi. Others connect at a nearby community centre, known as Choppies.

The people we spoke to said they use the internet to apply for jobs, search for tenders, follow current affairs and post content on social media. But without stable internet access or digital skills training, many remain limited to basic online participation. They are connected enough to scroll, but not enough to fully learn, earn or build.

In Ikemeleng, a settlement in Kroondal, a growing number of young people are trying to build careers in digital content creation. They hope to tell their own stories, generate income online and develop new skills. However, unreliable network coverage continues to hold them back.

Most residents rely on free Wi-Fi at Ikemeleng Clinic, installed by Glencore, a coal and ferroalloys mining company with local operations.

“I am a music creator and often do not have the internet to upload my music,” said Graciano Jose. “I sometimes connect at Ikemeleng Clinic, but the area is not always safe because phones are often stolen, especially by people struggling with substance abuse.”

This story was produced by Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism and shared with Scrolla.Africa as part of a content partnership. Read the full investigation on Oxpeckers.org.

Pictured above: People using their phones for internet access outside a local bank branch where one of the only Wi-Fi hotspots in town is available in Marikana.

Image source: Ihsaan Haffejee