JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- Deepening practical cooperation within BRICS is creating new opportunities for the Global South to strengthen economic resilience and advance sustainable development, a South African scholar has said.

"BRICS has become an important source of global economic dynamism, particularly driven by the scale and growth of its emerging-market economies," Mogomme Alpheus Masoga, deputy vice-chancellor for teaching and learning at the Central University of Technology, Free State, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Masoga said the significance of BRICS expansion goes beyond its growing membership, with cooperation increasingly extending from traditional trade to infrastructure, digitalization, green energy and technological innovation.

"Deeper intra-BRICS trade, investment, infrastructure financing and payment-system cooperation could diversify markets, strengthen supply-chain resilience and expand development-finance options," he said.

Such cooperation has become increasingly important amid rising protectionism, geopolitical tensions and supply-chain restructuring, Masoga added.

On China's role in the group, Masoga described the country as "an important driver of practical economic cooperation," particularly in emerging fields such as the digital economy and artificial intelligence (AI), saying that China's technological capabilities and experience could support joint research, skills development, digital infrastructure and technological solutions across BRICS countries.

He also noted the launch of the BRICS AI Industry Cooperation Network at the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, saying that China's proposed open-source AI initiative and action plan could help Global South countries develop technologies suited to their own development needs.

For South Africa, Masoga said BRICS cooperation provides opportunities to address infrastructure constraints, expand trade and investment, advance the energy transition and strengthen industrial capacity, as well as support the broader African development agenda.

The group's greatest value to the Global South is "its potential to turn collective economic weight into practical development cooperation," Masoga said.