Paratus Group is using ITW Africa 2026 in Nairobi to highlight the expansion of its connectivity infrastructure across East Africa, including the activation of a 2,000-kilometre terrestrial fibre route linking Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with Mombasa on Kenya’s coast.The Goma-to-Mombasa (G2M) route passes through Kigali, Kampala and Nairobi and is now live and carrying traffic. The connection creates a terrestrial east-west route across several East African markets while providing access to international subsea cable capacity through Mombasa.Paratus is among the technology and telecommunications companies participating in ITW Africa 2026, which is bringing together players from across the global connectivity ecosystem in Nairobi to discuss developments in telecommunications infrastructure, data centres, cloud services and digital networks.The G2M route is part of Paratus’ wider expansion in the region. The company has established points of presence and network interconnections at data centres and internet exchanges, providing additional routes for traffic between networks and markets.The infrastructure is being complemented by satellite connectivity. Paratus recently launched Starlink services in Uganda, providing an additional connectivity option for businesses operating in locations where terrestrial infrastructure may be limited.Joseph Kibwott, Paratus Kenya Country Manager, said: “The G2M route is live, our footprint in the region is growing and we are bringing different connectivity technologies together to give customers more choice. For businesses operating across several markets, the value is being able to work with one network partner across countries and technologies.”The G2M connection is particularly significant for inland markets because of its link to Mombasa, one of East Africa’s major subsea cable landing locations. The route gives traffic from markets including the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda a terrestrial path towards international connectivity available on the Kenyan coast.Paratus is also using ITW Africa to introduce a Layer 2 connectivity service over low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite infrastructure for the East African market. The service is designed to provide private connectivity between offices, branches, data centres and remote sites.Gert Duvenhage, Paratus Group Chief Technical Officer, said: “A strong network is about more than fiber alone. It is about combining terrestrial infrastructure, data centers, internet exchanges and satellite connectivity to create reliable routes for customer traffic. Paratus is therefore a compelling and strong partner for connectivity in East Africa.”The developments come as businesses operating across East Africa increasingly require connectivity that can support cloud services, data-intensive applications and cross-border operations. At the same time, differences in infrastructure availability between urban centres and remote areas are driving demand for a combination of fibre, wireless and satellite technologies.For Paratus, the G2M route adds another terrestrial connection across the region, while the Starlink service and LEO-based Layer 2 offering broaden the connectivity options available to businesses in areas where fibre connections are less accessible.The company is engaging customers, partners and industry stakeholders at ITW Africa 2026 as the event examines the infrastructure requirements behind Africa’s growing digital economy.
Read briefing Africa’s digital infrastructure conversation is evolving, with the focus shifting from simply expanding connectivity to building the infrastructure, investment environment and digital ecosystems needed to support the continent’s next phase of growth.This has been evident at the fourth edition of International Telecoms Week Africa (ITW Africa) in Nairobi, where telecommunications operators, technology companies, data centre providers, investors and policymakers have spent the first two days discussing the future of Africa’s digital economy. Held from 7 to 10 September at the Radisson Blu Upper Hill and co-located with Datacloud Africa, the event has brought together more than 1,800 expected decision-makers and over 160 speakers from across Africa and international markets.While connectivity remains central to the conversation, discussions during the first two days have increasingly highlighted what comes after the networks are built. The industry is now grappling with questions around data centres, cloud, artificial intelligence, energy, affordability, infrastructure financing and how digital investments can translate into wider economic value. For Africa, this represents an important shift.Over the past decade, much of the continent’s digital infrastructure agenda has centred on expanding mobile coverage, deploying fibre and improving international connectivity. Those investments have helped create the foundation for a more connected continent, but the conversations at ITW Africa point towards a more complex challenge: ensuring that the infrastructure is sufficiently utilised and capable of supporting the next generation of digital services. The issue of the digital divide therefore extends beyond whether people are covered by a network.Affordability, access to devices, digital skills and the availability of relevant local services remain important factors in determining whether connectivity translates into meaningful participation in the digital economy. Greater investment in infrastructure will need to be accompanied by efforts to stimulate demand and make digital services accessible to a wider population. At the same time, Africa’s growing data centre market is creating a new layer to the infrastructure conversation.The continent has attracted increasing investment into data centres as cloud adoption, enterprise digitisation and digital services grow. However, the next stage of the market will depend on whether that capacity can attract sufficient workloads and whether businesses see compelling reasons to host their data and applications within African markets. Data sovereignty, latency, security and the economics of hosting workloads locally are consequently becoming increasingly important considerations. Artificial intelligence is further accelerating this conversation.As organisations across Africa begin experimenting with and deploying AI, the demand for computing capacity, data and reliable connectivity is expected to increase. This is turning AI from a purely software and business application discussion into an infrastructure issue. The continent’s ability to benefit from AI will depend partly on whether it can develop the physical infrastructure needed to support it, including data centres, cloud platforms and high-capacity networks. That infrastructure, however, depends on another fundamental requirement: power.Energy has emerged as an increasingly important part of Africa’s digital infrastructure agenda, particularly as data centres and other high-density computing environments require reliable and consistent electricity. The challenge is not simply generating more power. Infrastructure developers also need predictable supply, competitive costs and regulatory frameworks that allow them to explore alternative power arrangements.This makes energy policy increasingly intertwined with technology policy. Countries seeking to attract data centre, cloud and AI investment will need to demonstrate not only strong connectivity but also the ability to provide the reliable power required to operate these facilities. The economics of connectivity itself are also coming under greater scrutiny. Africa continues to require significant investment in fibre infrastructure, particularly in underserved areas and across the last mile. But the commercial case for these investments depends on the ability to generate demand and sustainable revenues.This is where infrastructure investment, affordability and digital adoption intersect. Building more networks does not automatically close the digital divide if consumers and businesses cannot afford to use them or if there are insufficient digital services driving demand.For Kenya, which is hosting ITW Africa for the fourth consecutive year, the discussions are particularly relevant. The country is seeking to strengthen its position as a digital gateway to East Africa, supported by investments in connectivity, data centres and digital services. Government representatives at the event have also highlighted policy measures intended to improve the investment environment, including the Cloud Policy and National AI Strategy. But the opportunity extends beyond Kenya.
Read briefing Nobus Cloud Services, the Nigerian public cloud provider, has gone live in Kenya with a Nairobi availability zone, designated Nobus-EA-AZ1, allowing Kenyan organisations to provision workloads on its platform locally.The launch extends into Kenya the platform Nobus has built and established in Nigeria, where it hosts workloads for businesses, enterprises and government institutions. Alongside the launch, the company opened the Nobus Catalyst Programme, through which eligible African startups and enterprises can access free cloud credits and technical support, a customer-acquisition model familiar from the programmes global hyperscalers use to attract early-stage companies.In hyperscale cloud architecture, an availability zone is a discrete cluster of compute, storage and networking with its own power, cooling and connectivity. It is isolated from other zones so that a failure in one does not necessarily take down workloads running in another. Providers offer multiple zones within a region so customers can architect systems for resilience across them.Nobus has designated its Nairobi zone as its first in East Africa, reflected in the “EA-AZ1” designation, signalling the potential for additional zones as the platform expands.Nobus belongs to a distinct cohort in the Nigerian cloud market. Operated by Nkponani Limited from Lagos, it is among a group of indigenous providers, including Galaxy, Suburban, Layer3 and Nebula, that have positioned themselves against AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud on three specific grounds: local-currency pricing, in-country data storage and lower latency for domestic users.That proposition has gained traction at home. Nigerian startups have migrated to local providers over the past two years, while global platforms have responded directly to the currency argument. AWS began accepting naira payments in January 2025, saying local currencies are important to localising the payment experience.The same three arguments apply in Kenya, where the Data Protection Act places conditions on transfers of personal data outside the country, sector regulators such as the Central Bank of Kenya maintain their own data residency expectations, and shilling-denominated billing can remove some of the foreign-exchange exposure associated with dollar-priced cloud contracts.Whether those advantages carry the same weight in Kenya remains an open question. The country’s enterprise cloud market has different incumbents, procurement practices and a significantly larger hyperscaler presence than Nigeria had when local providers began gaining ground.Digital Realty opened its 6.4MW Nairobi Two facility in Karen this week, completing iColo’s transition to the Digital Realty brand. Oracle is preparing a Nairobi cloud region to be hosted with iXAfrica. Airtel Kenya broke ground on a Nairobi data centre in August, targeting commissioning in July 2027. Microsoft, Google, Africa Data Centres and other providers already have a presence in the market.Nobus enters that field competing on factors the larger platforms may find harder to match, particularly currency, locality and price, rather than breadth of services.It is also notable as an African provider expanding into another African market rather than a global platform entering from outside. That puts Nobus on the side of an argument that has featured prominently in discussions around Africa’s digital infrastructure: that local workloads and local demand are critical to making the continent’s infrastructure investments commercially viable.The claim that will ultimately determine whether the strategy works is simple: workloads.A zone that is live is not the same as a zone that is loaded. The real measure of Nobus’ Kenyan launch will be the regulated institutions, enterprises and startups that actually provision workloads on the platform.
Read briefing Until it glares too brightly, casting long shadows that (seemingly) obscure other people. It is said to be a cardinal rule that must never be broken. I refer you to the first of The 48 Laws Of Power by Robert Greene: ‘Never outshine the master.’ There’s a name for it. Tall poppy syndrome.About 2,500 years ago, Tarquin the Proud, Rome’s 7th and final king, ruled by treaty and fear. Sign up to fall under his control, or else. Gabii, a city, declined with a ‘no thank you.’ They were attacked, but simply wouldn’t fall. Frustrated, Tarquin turned from siege to subterfuge, sending his son Sextus as a Trojan horse. Sextus posed as a refugee, claiming to flee his despotic father, and was taken in. Once settled, Sextus sent a messenger to Rome with a single question: what now?Tarquin received the messenger in his garden. His answer. He walked in silence among his flowers, striking off the heads of the tallest poppies with his stick as he listened. Something clicked. The messenger returned with descriptive words that Sextus understood perfectly. He was to eliminate Gabii’s most powerful and influential men, the tallest poppies in that garden. One by one, they were removed. Stripped of its wisest citizens, Gabii surrendered to Rome without a fight.Australians and New Zealanders gave it its modern name. Scandinavians codified its spirit in the Law of Jante: do not think you are special. Do not think you are better than us. It comes from the Danish-Norwegian writer Aksel Sandemose who coined it in his 1933 novel, A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks. Africans need no translation; we are fluent in ‘who does she think she is.’ I am because we are aka Ubuntu dictates success as a communal achievement.The tall poppy syndrome (TPS) refers to the belief that poppies should grow uniformly without standing out and that if one grows too tall it should be cut down to size to maintain the status quo. It happens across workplaces and industries. So pervasively that even cardiology’s flagship publication felt compelled to weigh in. In a 2024 editorial, the European Heart Journal observed that “many women are being cut ‘down to size’” in the metaphorical poppy gardens of institutions globally.It happens surreptitiously; usually after a major achievement that sets them apart from their peers. It may be anything from an invitation to deliver a lecture, join a working group or committee, chair a meeting or an election to an international council. It may follow a significant award, a landmark project, a byline or publication that travels, a board appointment, or simply a growing recognition among peers. The moment she begins to shine too brightly, the harvest begins.TPS has, for years, existed anecdotally. It was like the wind. People felt it, knew it was there, observed it ruffling their clothes – and other people’s feathers – but it couldn’t be captured for its ephemeral nature. Then Dr Rumeet Billan and Women of Influence dug in. The Tallest Poppy study, the first international research project of its kind, surveyed 4,710 women across 103 countries in 2023. Nearly 9 in 10 respondents (86.8 per cent) reported experiencing the syndrome at work: being penalised, resented, undermined, or diminished because of their achievements. Not despite their achievements. Because of them.“My boss told me that I need to play it small because I’m making others uncomfortable.”“I was openly promised a promotion to the C-Suite and then later told I was too outwardly ambitious/excited for the opportunity, and not promoted. I’m completely checked out, embarrassed, and looking for new jobs now.” “I think it’s mostly out of fear and protection — fear that I want people’s jobs and could do them better if I tried; protection for themselves and their roles because I am viewed as a threat.”The costs were not imaginary. Over 85 per cent reported heightened stress; nearly three-quarters reported that their mental health had suffered. And the study surfaced a finding that should end a lazy narrative for good. The popular story holds that women are their own worst enemies, forever pulling each other down. The data disproves that. Men in leadership positions were the most likely to penalise or undermine women for their success. Women did cut, but mostly sideways, at peers. It seems when denied a chance to grab at higher branches, people learn to compete viciously for the low ones.The most unfortunate finding, though, is what women do next. They disengage from projects. They hold back in meetings. They hide their achievements. They shrink. The tall poppy develops a stoop, taking with her a generation of leadership talent.LinkedIn is notorious for preaching to women in leadership and leadership aspirants that they need to be visible. Books are written about it. Studies are done. The gospel has commandments: Build your personal brand. Post on LinkedIn. Take the keynote. Sit on the panel. Raise your hand. Take a seat at the table. Stop skirting the periphery of your career. Stand up and out. Women are repeatedly told competence alone will not cut it. That careers are built not on what you do, but on who knows what you do. Visibility is also how you get sponsorship, mentorship and access to the C-suite. It is how you get invites to closed rooms. How you tee off at golf. Where deals done in places no one tells you about, happen.
Read briefing The session was titled “Africa’s Moment to Deliver Digital Infrastructure at Scale.” What the panel actually delivered, over an hour at the Radisson Blu, was a costed list of reasons that moment isn’t yet being converted. There was also a striking degree of agreement on where the arithmetic fails.The panel brought together Wole Abu, Managing Director for West Africa at Equinix; David Bunei, Managing Director for Kenya at Oracle; Mugo Kibati, Chief Executive of Telkom Kenya; Chris Wood, Group Chief Executive of WIOCC; Andile Ngcaba, Chairman of Convergence Partners; and Adil El Youssefi, Chief Executive of Africa Data Centres. Between them, they build, finance, connect and sell the layer everything else in the digital economy sits on.Ngcaba supplied the session’s sharpest framing, and it was a price. Building data centre capacity on the continent runs at around $12 million per megawatt, he said.For African cities to become genuinely attractive, that figure needs to fall to roughly $5 million per megawatt. That is the point, he argued, at which the economics start working for neocloud operators, the specialist AI compute providers now taking a growing share of global capacity deployment.The $12 million reference point is not an African penalty. It sits squarely within global benchmarks. JLL puts the average worldwide data centre construction cost at about $11.3 million per megawatt for 2026, with standard facilities generally quoted between $8 million and $12 million.That is precisely what makes Ngcaba’s argument pointed. If African builds cost roughly what builds cost everywhere, Africa is competing for the same capital as markets offering better power prices, faster permitting and explicit incentives. And it is losing on the margins.He named the comparison directly. India has put incentives in place to attract AI data centres, and Africa is competing with those countries on two levers: tax incentives and the cost of equipment, including GPU importation, where duty and clearance treatment can add materially to the cost of the most expensive item in an AI facility.Power completes the equation. Ngcaba put the threshold at around 10 US cents per kilowatt-hour; above that, a location struggles to attract compute-intensive workloads. It’s a stark test, and a useful one. It converts a diffuse conversation about “energy challenges” into a single number an investment committee can check.El Youssefi, whose company operates one of the continent’s largest data centre platforms, made the same point from the operator’s seat: to compete, the price issues around building data centres must be addressed. And then came the corollary that ran through the entire session: the industry needs to see workloads.On that question, the panel was candid about something rarely stated so plainly. Much of the demand now materialising is not organic market pull but policy.Abu described compelling demand in Nigeria driven by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s data localisation requirements, alongside NITDA’s localisation rules. Together, these are pushing regulated data onto domestic infrastructure and generating both capacity requirements and migration projects.Bunei made the parallel case for Kenya, pointing to the consolidation of public sector data as a demand driver, alongside Nigeria’s policies bringing data onshore.Bunei’s framing of sovereignty was notably pragmatic. The sovereignty question, he argued, will bring local workloads. In the shorter term, that means existing local data centres can be utilised rather than sitting under-contracted.But he was equally clear about the condition attached. Regulations need to provide confidence, and consistency and stability are what allow an investor to be certain the investment can be recovered. Anchor clients providing initial workloads matter, because they underwrite the first tranche of capacity.He also sketched the demand curve beyond compliance: local languages, startups and localised industries generating requirements that eventually drive volume, which in turn drives down unit cost.Abu added the network dimension, the piece most often missed in data centre conversations. When traffic is peered locally, he said, more of it gets aggregated, and that aggregation builds more traffic still. Local interconnection isn’t merely a latency improvement. It’s a compounding mechanism that makes each additional participant more valuable to the next.Kibati supplied the session’s necessary corrective, in two numbers. Around 90 percent of the continent is covered by mobile networks, he noted, but only about 28 percent of people use the internet.That is the usage gap, and Kibati located its cause in affordability: of smartphones, of access, of data. Most people on the continent, he pointed out, are not at the economic level of consumers in other markets. The appetite for technology exists; the usage remains low.Set against the localisation-driven demand the other panellists described, the tension is clear. Regulation can compel banks and government agencies to place workloads locally. It cannot make seventy percent of a continent’s covered population into paying digital consumers. One demand stream is being manufactured by policy; the other is constrained by household income. Only the second scales indefinitely.
Read briefing Kunle Awosika has officially ended his 25-year career at Microsoft, stepping down from his role as Enterprise Partner Solutions Leader for Microsoft Middle East & Africa, in a departure that closes a defining chapter in the tech giant’s history on the continent.“Twenty-five years ago, I walked into Microsoft with little more than ambition, curiosity and a belief that technology could change lives. A week ago, I handed back my badge,” Awosika said, reflecting on his journey.Over more than two and a half decades at Microsoft, Awosika rose through a series of senior positions. Most recently, he served as Enterprise Partner Solutions Leader for MEA Growth Markets from June 2025 before being appointed to lead the same function for Microsoft Middle East & Africa the following month. Before that, he was GM for Public Sector Africa from May 2023 to August 2025, and Managing Director of the Africa Transformation Office (ATO) from August 2022 to May 2023.In these roles, Awosika worked closely with governments on digital transformation initiatives and supported entrepreneurs building industry-changing businesses. He also served on the Presidential Digital Talent Programme Advisory Board.One of the defining moments of his career, he recalled, was in 2015 when Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella chose Kenya as the location for the global Windows 10 launch, travelling to Nanyuki to witness the Mawingu Broadband Initiative delivering affordable internet to rural communities.He emphasized that the continent’s technological progress is no longer aspirational but already underway, stating, “Africa is not preparing for the digital future. Africa is building it.”Looking ahead, Awosika said his mission is far from over. “As I begin this next chapter, I look forward to spending more time on the ground across Africa, starting with Nigeria and Kenya, engaging entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, technology leaders, and institutions helping shape our continent’s future,” he said.“Because while my Microsoft journey has ended, my mission has not. I’m committed to advancing technology as a force for economic growth, inclusion, and opportunity, and helping organisations navigate the era of AI and digital transformation.”“Africa’s greatest technology story is not yet written,” he added. “Together, let us build it.”
Read briefing Digital Realty has opened the 6.4-megawatt Nairobi Two (NBO2) data centre in Karen, expanding its Nairobi campus and completing the transition of iColo, the East African operator it acquired, to the Digital Realty brand in Kenya and Mozambique.The facility is located roughly 300 metres from Nairobi One (NBO1), the carrier-neutral facility iColo opened in 2019. Together, the two sites allow customers to deploy critical workloads across separate buildings while maintaining continuity.NBO2 also provides access to more than 100 networks, two internet exchange points and a satellite teleport, offering an additional connectivity route to locations where terrestrial infrastructure is limited.“By connecting Nairobi Two with Nairobi One,” said Wanja Muriithi, Country General Manager for Kenya at Digital Realty, the company has “strengthened the resilience available to customers.”Muriithi said the new facility adds high-density capacity for enterprises, cloud providers, networks and digital platforms. She also said Kenya is positioned to benefit from growing demand for AI infrastructure, supported by its technology ecosystem, international connectivity, skilled workforce and renewable-heavy electricity grid.For a market where interconnection density can determine a data centre’s value as much as physical capacity, the network count is a significant specification. A facility’s usefulness to a bank, cloud provider or ISP depends largely on how many other networks and services it can reach without leaving the building.The transition of iColo to Digital Realty, a New York-listed company that describes itself as the world’s largest cloud and carrier-neutral data centre operator, brings the Kenyan and Mozambican operations into its global network.Such acquisitions can expand what local facilities offer, including standardised contracts, cross-border capacity commitments and a single commercial relationship for customers operating across multiple markets.The Nairobi campus also has room to grow. Reporting on the site’s master plan has described a three-facility development with a captive substation, potentially taking the campus beyond 20MW at full build and placing it among the region’s larger single-site concentrations of data centre capacity.The launch also doubled as a government showcase, with policy reform emerging as one of the event’s key talking points.In its account of the event, the government attributed the investment partly to reforms aimed at making Kenya more competitive. These included the removal of local shareholding requirements for ICT investments, changes to taxes affecting digital exports, the Kenya Cloud Policy and the National AI Strategy 2025 to 2030.The removal of local ownership requirements could have implications beyond the data centre sector. Ownership thresholds have been among the more contested issues in African technology investment. In South Africa, for example, a requirement that certain licensees be 30 percent owned by historically disadvantaged groups has been cited in debates around Starlink’s market entry.Kenya is now promoting a different proposition: foreign technology operators can own their Kenyan entities outright. The Digital Realty investment provides a high-profile example of the policy environment the government is seeking to promote.John Tanui, Principal Secretary for ICT and the Digital Economy, said the government was focused on creating an environment that attracts investment into the digital economy while opening opportunities for young Kenyans.The government also said it would soon issue guidelines identifying priority locations for future data centre investment. The initiative will take a multi-agency approach to factors including power availability, fibre connectivity, land, water, security, skills and investment facilitation.The list effectively reflects many of the infrastructure and operating conditions that determine where large-scale data centres can be built.The attendance at the launch underscored the commercial and diplomatic significance of the investment, which came shortly before the AmCham Business Summit.Those present included Frank Garcia, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs; Susan M. Burns, US Embassy Chargé d’Affaires in Nairobi; Stephen Isaboke, Principal Secretary for Broadcasting and Telecommunications; Philip Thigo, Special Envoy on Technology; David Mugonyi, Communications Authority Director-General; John Walubengo, Deputy Data Protection Commissioner; James Turuthi, Frontier Optical Networks and KeNIC Deputy Chief Executive; Fiona Asonga, TESPOK Chief Executive; Michael Jacobs, Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Managers; and Marcel Louw, Digital Realty Managing Director for Africa.The presence of both communications and data protection regulators alongside American diplomatic representatives reflects the intersection in which major data centre investments operate, between digital sovereignty, regulation, infrastructure and foreign capital.
Read briefing The global financial crisis left corporate treasurers with an uncomfortable truth that money which appears to be available can dissipate rather quickly when everybody reaches for it all at once. Companies that had treated liquidity largely as a balance-sheet management issue discovered how much depended on being able to get hold of cash when markets stopped behaving normally, and the years that followed produced a treasury function far less willing to take that access for granted, particularly where buffers were thin or too much confidence rested on a handful of banking relationships and funding lines that had never been tested under real strain. In that sense, 2008 did its job, teaching companies to worry about whether the money would be there.Nearly two decades later, we are seeing that the money can be there and still prove surprisingly hard to put to work.Cross-border payments are becoming technologically faster at the same time that the financial system around them is becoming more politically and economically fragmented, leaving companies with a curious problem: they can know where their cash is almost instantly and still face growing uncertainty over how freely it can move. Hard-currency shortages can complicate conversion in one market, regulation can change the economics of moving funds in another, while the correspondent relationships that have traditionally carried cross-border payments have themselves become thinner in parts of the world. None of this necessarily reduces the amount of cash on the balance sheet; it changes the degree to which that cash can be relied upon as immediately deployable liquidity.Research suggests treasury has already spent years improving the things it can control from the inside out, investing heavily in automation and tighter control over cash. PwC’s 2025 Global Treasury Survey found that 94 per cent of respondents already operated a dedicated treasury management system and 65 per cent planned to expand their use of APIs, but forecasting still relied heavily on manual consolidation even among large companies and satisfaction with forecasting remained worryingly low.EY found something similar, just from a different angle: 73 per cent of respondents still described digitising treasury functions as a challenge, even as the technology moves towards real-time liquidity management and increasingly automated payments.The interesting part is the mismatch. Companies are getting progressively better at seeing cash and processing it, while the practical conditions governing whether that cash can be moved are becoming more complicated, which means the industry may be perfecting the tools for yesterday’s problem just as the problem itself is changing shape.That should trouble treasurers because much of the operating logic built after the last great liquidity shock was designed to make cash easier to control from the centre. There was good reason for that, and there still is, though an arrangement can be beautifully efficient while everything is working and rather less impressive once one of the routes on which that efficiency depends becomes constrained. That is where transactional banking starts to earn a more strategic place in the conversation, because the bank sits in the actual pathways through which liquidity moves and can see where those pathways narrow.A company may have perfectly sound liquidity at group level and still find that the route between one market and another has become slower or more expensive than the balance sheet suggests, which makes the banking architecture around that cash more consequential. The value of the transaction bank then is in helping the client understand the shape of that architecture across jurisdictions and, just as importantly, where it is likely to fail under pressure.This is also why the old language of global consistency can be misleading. What we are hearing from clients at Absa is that the real difficulty is in making decisions across different markets that still add up to one coherent treasury strategy. That becomes harder when each market imposes its own operating conditions and payment realities, and it places a premium on banks that can hold the whole picture while still understanding the detail on the ground.What companies really need is consistency of outcome across markets that are anything but consistent in how they regulate and clear transactions. That asks more of the banking relationship than the ability to provide the same product everywhere. It asks the bank to join up local knowledge with a broader view of the client’s liquidity, so that cash management reflects how money actually moves through the business. At that point, transaction banking becomes part of the company’s resilience architecture, because the way liquidity is structured begins to determine how much freedom the business has to act.The ability to facilitate trade, optimise liquidity, strengthen supply-chain ecosystems, support cross-border commerce and enable efficient movement of capital is becoming a critical differentiator for financial institutions seeking to create long-term value for their clients and shareholders.
Read briefing In the early 1990’s, I was a fresh entrant into the ICT space with all the hubris and arrogance that goes with the innocence of youth. A feature which is surprisingly human rather than a bug.This was the time when the PC was making a name for itself enabling the move from dump terminals days on Xenix, Unix and DR-DOS to the early graphical user-based terminals. Which meant that one did not need major training to become proficient in utilising ICT to become more productive. Since I was young and driven to learning it made no sense to me why the “old” people who we were trying to get to utilise the technology were so resistant resulting in many being declared redundant.It was only until I too became old that I realised resistance was not a flaw, but a built-in feature, by Mother Nature. She hard-coded paths in our brains to reduce the amount of energy they consumed.One of the clients I was exposed to happened to be a young bank headed by a team of three young men and one older one, all looking to disrupt the sector. During a strategy meeting, the chairman, who was not a career banker, asked the stupid question; “Why is it that a cheque needed to be handled by not less than four people before it was paid?”Let me backtrack for historical insights. For those who never used a phone booth, a cheque is a piece of paper that is as good as cash. Like the SMS you receive – mainly from m-Pesa – and believe that you have received cash.Back to my human feature analysis, the chairman was told that it was to reduce theft and that with four people in the line; one to verify the signature, another to confirm cash in the account, another to record the ledger entry and another to approve the pay-out, collusion was reduced.After the value of the likely theft over a year was quickly calculated by the Head of Risk and the finance person threw in the cost of the four, it was agreed that we provide the cashier with all the relevant information to do the work of the entire back office.This was so radical that it is rumoured that the industry incumbents put together a sting operation to have the bank shutdown as it was forcing them to destroy well established hard-coded neural paths and develop new ones. A process which I have come to accept over the years is more painful than a root canal without an anaesthetic.So what does that have to do with getting the CIO away from being a fire marshal whose greatest skill has become fighting fires?Most IT departments have become so comfortable with handling fires that some have even come to anticipate the next fire, going further to develop skills and tools to deal with the fires. This way when someone shows up, such as yours truly, with a way to prevent the fire from starting in the first place, one encounters resistance worse than that of the back-office staff in a bank.In the same way we eliminated four people from the cheque-paying process, is the same way many fire fighters within the IT department will soon find themselves eliminated.As you finish reading this, I will leave you to ponder whether you want to create new neural pathways or place your order for day old chicks.
Read briefing I sit to write this after rewatching Ex-Machina, a decade-old film about artificial intelligence. Ex machina literally translates to “out of the machine” in Latin. It refers to a plot device in storytelling where a seemingly unsolvable problem is resolved by a sudden, unexpected intervention, typically by a powerful figure or unexpected event. An intervention that largely feels artificial or forced, like a deus (god) being lowered onto the stage by a machine in ancient Greek theater.Like practically any other artificial intelligence sci-fi movie, the AI ultimately wins. But that does not seem to be the conclusion of my interview with Philip Thigo. While optimistic about AI, he also categorically thinks it is, in fact, much misunderstood.Navigating the complex intersection of technology, policy, and international relations, Thigo’s insights reveal a vision where innovation packs a double whammy. It drives economic growth and pushes society’s progress all while making sure no one is left behind. His candid reflections underscore the crux of collaboration and inclusivity in the era of AI.What is this designation or job that has never existed before in Kenya entail until it was created just for you. What does it actually mean, being a Special Envoy for Technology?(Laughs). It’s not the ‘Special’ piece in so much as it is about the ‘Envoy’ piece. A lot of countries started thinking, as far back as 2017, about how they could engage tech companies because they started becoming bigger than countries. Some have GDPs that are greater than certain countries combined. It is the genesis of tech diplomacy. Once you introduce that, you need somebody to manage it, which is where I come in. Other jurisdictions have called it something else. Denmark has the Tech Ambassador; the US has an Ambassador-at-Large. For Kenya, we wanted to do it differently. We have to have two kinds of diplomacy. One is how we integrate technology and engage tech companies and entrepreneurs, while at the same time, engage externally with technology that is driven by countries. This is when a Special Envoy starts to make sense.(Laughs). Ours is a first, and I’m hoping other African countries will follow suit.It figures then that the next thing anyone would like to know is basic, and it is this – what is your typical day like?I’ve hardly started. But how I would imagine is that it is very much around the ecosystem wanting to be understood. I’ve been having a lot of conversations. I’m talking to data centres trying to understand them; talking to specific companies like Oracle and Microsoft – G42 and how they’re looking at the region and why they want to be here to what we can do better to local innovators. It’s about engaging them and documenting my thoughts as I listen and figure out how to include relevant parties on the margins. I’m making sure no one is left out and that they’re understanding the direction the country is taking. No one is left out of the conversation.How do you think your experience in global digital leadership will lead Kenya’s digital transformation agenda especially when it comes to promoting transparency and accountability?Those are values that you cannot disconnect from technology we are in the era of diminished trust. 70 per cent of the world is an autocracy. Aside from that, how do you ensure citizens are active participants, and, how do you ensure governments are listening to citizens using technology? When citizens are on X, they have discussed, judged, and ruled against the government. The citizens demand openness, have access to knowledge and you can’t lie to them. This citizenry are empowered. There is a certain type of service they expect. At some point, the government needs to deliver. And if not, then they need to be engaged with the citizens.How do you make yourself a bridge and maintain contact with the needs of both the government and the citizens?As an envoy, you become someone who helps articulate a lot of these issues. An envoy is a messenger, and the messenger anywhere can’t be shot, so I can be very candid. That’s what I’ve been doing. I’m apolitical. I cannot be political. We operate on the domain of ones and zeros so I can confidently tell you if it’s there or it’s not. We see capacity as a technology capacity. Technology is everywhere and it affects everything including how we interface with the community. It is not just about capacity in tech. It’s also about the leadership. They don’t have to be tech savvy, but they have to be able to budget, to engage, to resource and how to staff. The leaders, and I am surprised when I walk into offices and find this – are not trained and are not in that space.What is the process of advising the President like? Do you do Power Point presentations? Give reports? Is it an informal conversation? How, exactly, does this play out?I haven’t gotten there yet! But the President has a council of advisors so there’s definitely a format. I can only tell you what I’ve done now and in most cases. I’m engaged in the ICT sector reforms and there are things you cannot write on paper. I’ve been doing a lot of PPTs especially when it comes to working with the sector I’m in because not everybody talks technical so it’s just easy to be visual.
Read briefing Mastercard has partnered with Flowcart to introduce in-chat card payments for social and conversational commerce, starting in Kenya before expanding to other African markets. The collaboration will allow consumers to discover products, place orders and make card payments within a chat-based interaction without being redirected to a separate website or application.Following the Kenyan launch, the service is expected to expand across East Africa and into markets including South Africa, Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire. The partnership comes as social messaging platforms become increasingly important channels for commerce in Kenya. WhatsApp, in particular, has emerged as a major channel for businesses and informal sellers to interact with customers, advertise products and receive orders.For merchants, the Mastercard and Flowcart solution is intended to connect the purchasing and payment stages within the same conversation. Payments can be completed through embedded links, QR codes or checkout flows supported by Mastercard Gateway and its acquiring partners.“Social commerce is redefining how consumers discover and engage with brands. Our collaboration with Flowcart enables us to embed secure, seamless payments directly into these experiences, unlocking new growth opportunities for merchants and expanding digital payment acceptance in one of Africa’s fastest-growing digital economies,” Shehryar Ali, Senior Vice President and Country Manager for East Africa and Indian Ocean Islands at Mastercard, said.The companies said the service will also target Kenya’s growing creator and social-selling economy, where individuals and small businesses increasingly use messaging and social platforms to sell directly to audiences.Ananth Gudipati, Founder at Flowcart, said: “We are excited to collaborate with Mastercard to transform how businesses transact in social channels, whether that’s an independent social seller, a fast-growing SME or a large enterprise brand running WhatsApp as a core commerce channel. Together, we are enabling a future where commerce and payments happen seamlessly within conversations, driving higher conversion, repeat purchases and meaningful growth for merchants.”The partnership also comes as Kenyan small and medium-sized enterprises continue to prioritise easier digital payment options. According to Mastercard’s 2026 SME Confidence Index, 80% of Kenyan SMEs identify simple and user-friendly payment methods as a key requirement for future growth.The integration is designed to support businesses ranging from individual social sellers and small enterprises to larger companies, allowing them to accept card payments without necessarily requiring a dedicated website or traditional point-of-sale system.The expansion reflects a wider shift towards embedded payments, where transactions are built directly into digital platforms and customer interactions rather than requiring consumers to move between separate applications.Mastercard and Flowcart plan to extend the service beyond Kenya as they seek to support social and conversational commerce across additional African markets.
Read briefing Vertiv has agreed to acquire UtilityInnovation Holdings, which operates as UtilityInnovation Group (UIG), in a deal valued at approximately $1.45 billion in cash at closing, with an additional $1.15 billion potentially payable depending on the company’s performance.The acquisition will give Vertiv access to UIG’s microgrid solutions, power controls and behind-the-meter power architecture capabilities, as data centre operators face growing challenges securing sufficient electricity for new facilities.Under the agreement, Vertiv Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Vertiv Holdings, will acquire UIG. The transaction is expected to close subject to customary conditions.The initial purchase price represents about 13 times UIG’s expected 2027 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA). The additional consideration will depend on UIG achieving specified EBITDA targets over 12- and 24-month periods following the transaction.The deal comes as the availability of electricity becomes an increasingly important factor in where and how data centres are developed. The rapid expansion of AI workloads has increased demand for data centre capacity, while grid connection processes in several markets can take years, creating pressure on operators to find alternative ways of bringing power to new facilities.UIG specialises in microgrid systems and behind-the-meter power architectures that can combine grid connections with onsite generation and energy storage. These systems can allow data centre sites to operate with a greater degree of independence from the utility grid and manage multiple power sources.Gio Albertazzi, Chief Executive Officer, Vertiv, said, “For AI data centre operators, competitive advantage increasingly depends on how quickly they can move from site selection to first token,” said Gio Albertazzi, Chief Executive Officer, Vertiv. “Vertiv has the most complete power and cooling portfolio in the industry. With UIG, we anticipate extending that portfolio upstream to the utility interconnect and onsite power sources, creating a coordinated architecture from source to chip without tying customers to a single generation technology or supplier.”Albertazzi continued: “Together, we anticipate being better positioned to support grid-connected sites, bridge-to-grid deployments and islanded sites supplied by onsite generation, while reducing complexity from site planning through rack-level deployment. This broader capability can help customers accelerate time to power and, ultimately, time to first token.”Sidney Hinton, Founder and CEO of UIG, said the acquisition would bring the company’s microgrid and power architecture expertise into Vertiv’s wider infrastructure business.“UIG was founded to solve increasingly complex power challenges for data centre operators through flexible, technology-agnostic architectures. Vertiv’s global scale, critical infrastructure portfolio and service capabilities make it a strong strategic fit for what we have built. We believe this combination can expand the reach of UIG’s microgrid controls and power architecture expertise and create greater value for customers as power becomes an increasingly critical constraint on data centre growth.”The transaction reflects a broader shift in the data centre industry, where access to power is becoming a constraint alongside land, cooling and network connectivity. Operators developing large AI facilities are increasingly considering onsite generation, battery storage and microgrids as ways to supplement grid supply or bridge the gap while waiting for permanent grid connections.For Vertiv, the acquisition expands its involvement in data centre power infrastructure from equipment within facilities towards the point where sites connect to the electricity grid and manage additional power sources.UIG has worked on microgrid deployments for data centres in the United States and Europe and provides systems designed to coordinate multiple power sources, including grid connections, onsite generation and energy storage.Vertiv said it expects the acquisition to be accretive to adjusted earnings per share during the first year after completion.
Read briefing Nairobi has hosted a sitting president of the United States, a Pope, and earlier this year, more than thirty African heads of state in a single week. I have sat close enough to the machinery behind several of these moments to notice something that rarely makes the press coverage: the hardest part was never the technology. It was getting people who don’t normally sit in the same room, protocol officers, security agencies, telecom engineers, city planners, private sponsors, to move in the same direction at the same time.I have spent nearly two decades on different sides of that same problem: inside a telco, Safaricom, that helped build mobile money and connectivity for a country that leapfrogged conventional banking infrastructure; inside government, advising Kenya’s President’s Delivery Unit on digital strategy; and now as an entrepreneur running technology and communications ventures across East Africa, and as co-founder of a platform, the Africa Technology Leadership Forum, built specifically because I kept running into the same institutional wall no matter which side of the table I sat on.Here it is, plainly: Africa does not have a technology ambition problem. It has a leadership design problem. Kenya, precisely because it is so often held up as the continent’s technology bellwether, is as good a place as any to see why.Consider research commercialisation — not an abstract policy topic, but a concrete Kenyan one. Kenya’s Research-to-Commercialisation programme, run between 2022 and 2025 with funding from the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, strengthened commercialisation systems in 25 universities, helped establish or reinforce 14 technology-transfer offices, and helped 12 ventures reach scale, reportedly mobilising close to $4.7 million in capital along the way. Those are not small numbers for a three-year programme. But notice what they required: a UK development agency, a Kenyan government innovation agency, universities and a private implementing partner, all coordinating deliberately, because none of them could have produced that outcome alone. That is still the exception in African research systems, not the rule. Most research stops at the point of publication, not because the ideas are weak, but because no single institution owns the job of walking a discovery from laboratory to market.The same institutional gap shows up around capital. Everyone treats investment inflows into African technology as inherently good news. It is only good news when that money lands on infrastructure and institutions capable of absorbing it. I have watched government departments announce ambitious digital strategies with genuine enthusiasm, then discover a year later that no one had built the procurement pathway, the skills base or the regulatory clarity the strategy quietly assumed would already exist. Kenya’s proposed biotechnology park at Konza Technopolis — a public-private venture reportedly envisaged at roughly $215 million to anchor local pharmaceutical manufacturing — is still moving through feasibility rather than construction. Its progress, or lack of it, will tell us something real about whether our capital ecosystem is maturing fast enough to match our capital appetite.Then there is the question I think Kenyan and African leaders are least prepared for: technology as foreign policy. Data governance, AI standards and cybersecurity have quietly become instruments of diplomatic leverage, not back-office IT decisions. The African Union’s adoption of a Continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy in 2024 was a genuine, substantive step. But a strategy is not the same as a seat at the table where the actual global rules get negotiated. If the standards governing cross-border data flows or AI accountability were being finalised this year, how many African governments could send a delegation equipped to negotiate them, rather than simply comply once they’re set? In my own experience advising across eight African countries, very few. That is not a criticism of any single government. It is a description of a capability gap that sits between ministries of ICT, foreign affairs and finance, a gap no single ministry can close alone.None of this will matter if citizens don’t trust the systems being built. I have sat in enough rooms where “responsible innovation” was treated as a communications line rather than an operating discipline to know the difference matters. Trust in data protection and digital systems cannot be manufactured by a single company or ministry; it has to be built through sustained, sometimes uncomfortable dialogue between policymakers, technologists, businesses and the communities who will actually use, or refuse to use, what gets built.What connects every one of these problems is that they are cross-sector by nature and are being managed by single-sector institutions. A minister rarely calls a venture investor before finalising digital policy. A university rarely builds a commercialisation strategy into its research plan from day one. An investor rarely asks about institutional capacity before writing a cheque. Each of these is a small, specific, fixable failure of coordination. Each one also compounds.
Read briefing Francis Mwangi Wokabi has been appointed as the Head of IT and Projects at Commercial International Bank – Kenya (CIB). He joins the bank following a 4 year spell at Platcorp Holdings Plc, where he was serving as Group Head, IT Security and Infrastructure.At his new role, Mwangi will be responsible for the bank’s digital infrastructure, IT Security, and project delivery. He will be the bridge between high-level business strategy and technical execution, ensuring the bank’s technology systems are secure, scalable, and fully aligned with regulatory requirements.Wokabi’s appointment at CIB Kenya marks another step in a career that has largely been shaped around IT infrastructure, information security and technology management. Before joining Platcorp Holdings, he served as Head of IT Services & Information Security at Twiga Foods, where his responsibilities placed him at the intersection of technology operations and security.Earlier in his career, Wokabi was Head of IT at TripleOKlaw LLP, giving him experience managing technology within the professional services environment. His progression from leading IT functions to taking on broader responsibilities around infrastructure and information security reflects a career that has gradually expanded from technology operations into strategic IT leadership.Alongside his corporate roles, Wokabi continues to maintain links with the wider technology and academic communities. He serves as an Advisory Board Member at CIO Africa by dx5, and is also an Adjunct Lecturer at the School of Science and Technology at United States International University-Africa, where he contributes to the development of technology skills and knowledge.Academically, Wokabi holds a BSc in Business Information Systems from Middlesex University and an MSc in Information Systems Security from Strathmore University. He is also pursuing a PhD in Information Technology at United States International University-Africa.
Read briefing Sun King is deepening its push into Kenya’s smartphone market with the launch of the EZ 3 series, using the same pay-as-you-go model that has helped the company expand access to solar energy across the country.The move marks another step in Sun King’s expansion beyond its traditional solar business. Rather than competing directly with established smartphone manufacturers on high-end specifications, the company is applying its existing financing and distribution model to a device that has increasingly become central to how consumers access digital services.Sun King first entered Kenya’s smartphone market with the EZ 1, using its lipa pole pole model to allow customers to acquire the device through small daily payments rather than a large upfront purchase. The EZ 3 builds on that approach, with Sun King positioning affordability and payment flexibility alongside the phone’s hardware as key parts of its proposition. That strategy reflects a broader shift in the company’s business. Sun King built its Kenyan customer base by making solar home systems and appliances available to households that could not necessarily afford the full cost upfront. It is now applying the same principle to smartphones, effectively treating connectivity as another form of access that can be financed over time.The distinction is important because the EZ 3 is not positioned to win a conventional smartphone specification race. Its hardware sits firmly in the affordable segment, with a 6.75-inch HD+ 120Hz display, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage and a 13MP rear camera. It is powered by a Unisoc T7250 processor and has a 5,000mAh battery. The EZ 3 Pro, on the other hand, pushes the specifications higher, offering 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, a 50MP main camera and a 6,000mAh battery with 18W fast charging. Even so, both devices are designed around accessibility rather than competing with premium smartphones.For Sun King’s target customer, that may be the more relevant proposition. The company says the EZ 3 is aimed at consumers including first-time smartphone buyers, students, traders and boda-boda riders. Some of the early customers highlighted by Sun King are already using the device for activities tied directly to their livelihoods.For small businesses and informal workers, a smartphone can function as a sales channel, marketing tool, mobile banking device and connection to customers and suppliers. That makes Sun King’s move less about becoming another smartphone manufacturer and more about extending its existing approach to financing essential technology.The company already has experience selling hardware through a distributed network and collecting small recurring payments from customers. Its solar business has given it a customer base familiar with the model, while its operations in Kenya provide an existing platform through which additional products can be marketed and supported.It also comes at a time when smartphone ownership is increasingly tied to participation in Kenya’s digital economy. Mobile money, social commerce, online marketplaces, digital financial services and a growing number of government and business services are accessed through smartphones.Sun King’s Catherine Mudachi, VP Marketing, said the EZ 3 was developed based on the company’s experience serving Kenyan customers.“People want a phone that works, payments they can manage and a company they can trust. With the EZ 3 series, we’ve made the everyday choice even easier — and even more affordable.”The company is also connecting the smartphone strategy to its existing energy business. Sun King says one in five Kenyans now have access to its solar products, giving it an established position among consumers who have previously used its financing model to acquire energy products. The combination of energy and connectivity is particularly relevant for households and small businesses operating outside reliable grid infrastructure. A smartphone requires not only connectivity but also a reliable source of power, bringing Sun King’s two businesses closer together.Whether that strategy can translate into a significant smartphone business remains to be seen. Kenya’s handset market is already crowded, with established brands competing aggressively in the affordable segment. Sun King’s advantage is therefore unlikely to come from having the most powerful processor, highest-resolution camera or most advanced display.For a company whose business was built on making solar technology accessible through small payments, that may be the more important competition to win.
Read briefing Imagine it’s a Friday afternoon in Kampala. A small clothing retailer is preparing for one of its busiest trading weekends. Customers are queuing to pay using mobile money, while the owner is placing an urgent order with a supplier in Nairobi through a cloud-based inventory system. Suddenly, everything stops.Card payments fail. Mobile money transactions time out. Inventory systems freeze. Within minutes, a problem that began hundreds of kilometres away on an undersea cable has become a crisis for a small business that has never seen the ocean.This story could just as easily unfold in Lusaka, Kigali, Gaborone, Pretoria, Harare or Blantyre. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, businesses increasingly depend on digital infrastructure that extends far beyond the coastline.Recently, hundreds of business leaders, policymakers and technology experts gathered in Mombasa for the “Our Ocean Conference” on Africa’s blue economy. I was among them, and although the conference focused on East Africa’s maritime economy, its central lesson extends across Sub-Saharan Africa: advancing public-private action to unlock blue economy investment and building resilience for a regenerative and sustainable future.Across Sub-Saharan Africa, significant investment has expanded international connectivity through submarine cables – nowhere more visibly than in East Africa. Today, more than 95 per cent of international internet traffic travels through subsea cables linking Africa to Europe, Asia and the rest of the world. But landing data on the coastline is only the first step.The real challenge – and the next frontier of the region’s digital transformation – is ensuring that data moves quickly, securely and reliably beyond the coast to businesses, hospitals, schools and governments. That is what turns connectivity into economic value: no longer simply getting online, but keeping business, public services and trade running when disruption occurs.It is about ensuring that a fintech transaction in Kigali never fails because a cable was cut off the coast of Kenya. It is also about allowing a manufacturer in Zambia, a logistics company in Botswana or an exporter in Malawi to access cloud platforms without interruption.Despite remarkable progress, Africa’s digital infrastructure remains vulnerable when too much traffic relies on too few routes. Damage to a single submarine cable, whether from shipping activity, seismic events or infrastructure failure, can ripple across multiple countries within hours, slowing internet speeds, disrupting financial services and increasing operating costs for businesses.While submarine cables connect Africa to the world, terrestrial fibre networks carry that connectivity inland to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and eastern DRC in East Africa, and from landing stations in South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Namibia onward to Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Malawi. When those routes are concentrated around a handful of transit corridors, resilience suffers.To give a simplistic analogy, assume every truck travelling from the Port of Mombasa to Kampala had only one highway available, a single accident would bring trade to a standstill. Digital infrastructure works the same way. Every additional fibre route creates another highway for data, allowing information to reroute automatically whenever one path becomes congested or damaged.In 2023 alone, 200 cable repairs were reported worldwide. The widespread disruptions of 2024 affected businesses across much of Sub-Saharan Africa, and a recent outage on Africa’s west coast kept networks down for more than a day across several markets, along with the financial institutions, telecoms operators and cloud services that rely on them.For a logistics company tracking trucks between Nairobi and Kampala, or a fintech processing thousands of mobile payments per minute, milliseconds of delay can erode customer confidence. For exporters, manufacturers, hospitals and universities, resilient connectivity is no longer a convenience; it is operational infrastructure.Fortunately, a new generation of digital infrastructure investment is strengthening resilience in East Africa and beyond, through new terrestrial fibre corridors, regional internet exchanges and expanded cross-border connectivity linking Southern, Central and West Africa.Projects such as the Umoja cable, connecting Africa and Australia, and the 2Africa cable, create multiple landing points across East Africa, while planned additions such as the Blu Rahman & Dare-1 cable extension will boost capacity and provide additional resilience. At Seacom, we are building towards future-proof multi-terabit networks. Most recently, we launched a high-capacity route connecting Nairobi, Kisumu and Kampala, reinforcing one of East Africa’s most critical digital corridors. Together, these new projects form a multi-lane digital highway: a resilient network of interconnected routes capable of supporting the region’s growing demand for cloud computing, artificial intelligence, financial technology and cross-border trade.
Read briefing Governments across Eastern and Southern Africa are under pressure to expand conservation while meeting the global goal of protecting at least 30% of terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine areas by 2030.The target is part of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted by 196 countries at the UN Biodiversity Conference, COP15, in 2022. Its 23 targets include a requirement for countries to establish well-connected and effectively managed protected areas.But meeting the target requires more than designating land and water for conservation. Governments need accurate data showing where ecosystems and threatened species are located, how they are changing and whether protected areas are connected and effectively managed.That data is often scattered across government agencies, research institutions and conservation organisations, making it difficult to build a consistent picture of biodiversity across borders.The Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) is addressing the challenge through its Regional Centre of Excellence (RCoE) for Biodiversity, Forests and Seascape Ecosystems Management.The initiative covers 24 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa and provides biodiversity maps, geospatial data, policy support and technical training to help governments plan and manage protected and conserved areas.A central component is the RCoE Geospatial Platform, a cloud-based system that brings together satellite imagery, biodiversity information, forest data, protected-area maps and other environmental datasets.The platform is designed to give governments a shared view of their ecosystems and help them identify conservation priorities, monitor environmental changes and generate evidence for biodiversity reporting.AWS provides the cloud infrastructure supporting the initiative, allowing large volumes of geospatial and Earth observation data to be stored, processed and accessed digitally.The system also supports the global 30-by-30 agenda, particularly Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal framework, which focuses on effectively conserving and managing at least 30% of the world’s terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine areas by 2030.The RCoE programme runs from 2024 to 2028 and covers countries including Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Angola and South Africa.The initiative received international recognition in 2026 when RCMRD won Esri’s Special Achievement in GIS Award. Esri cited the centre’s use of GIS and Earth observation technology to strengthen biodiversity conservation and support evidence-based environmental decisions across the region.We spoke to Ngugi Kimani, Geospatial Data and Technologies Manager at RCMRD, about the RCoE Geospatial Platform, what the Esri award means for Africa’s geospatial community, and how cloud-based technologies and Earth observation are changing the way governments across the region collect, analyse and use environmental data.1: What challenge is the RCoE Geospatial Platform solving and why does it matter?Across Eastern and Southern Africa, countries are making critical decisions about where to protect forests, restore degraded landscapes, manage wildlife and respond to climate change, yet much of the information they need is scattered across institutions, stored in incompatible formats, or simply unavailable to decision makers.Without integrated systems, countries cannot credibly track whether they’re protecting the ecosystems, their populations, economies and climate resilience depend on, let alone report that progress to the world. A region racing against a 2030 deadline cannot afford to make that case on guesswork.That’s the gap Regional Centre of Excellence (RCoE) for Biodiversity, Forests and Seascape Ecosystems Management was built to close. It is a component of the Africa Regional Centres of Excellence (ArcX) programme funded by the European Union and co-implemented by the RCMRD and Landscape Alliance. The platform brings together trusted biodiversity, protected area, satellite and environmental data into a single cloud-based system so governments, conservation organizations and researchers can access the same up-to-date information and make faster, evidence-based decisions.Since launching in October 2024, the RCoE Geospatial Platform has grown into a regional conservation resource. RCMRD has trained more than 5,000 people in geospatial technologies by combining satellite imagery, mapping and geographic data to support conservation planning while building an online community of over 1,100 members and engaging more than 3,200 participants through arts and mapping competitions designed to raise biodiversity awareness.The platform has also strengthened regional cooperation. RCMRD has signed 17 data-sharing agreements and expanded collaboration through four strategic partnerships to improve access to environmental information. New analytical tools, including Geo Hex, are being developed to help governments identify priority areas for conservation, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity protection more accurately across national borders.
Read briefing Technology distributor Redington is showcasing artificial intelligence, cloud, cybersecurity and digital infrastructure solutions at GITEX Nigeria 2026, as businesses in the country increase investment in technologies aimed at improving operations and developing new digital capabilities.The company is participating in the event alongside technology vendors including Dell Technologies, Huawei, HP, Microsoft, Nutanix, MSI, AWS, ASUS Business and Acer. A major focus of Redington’s presence is the growing adoption of AI, with the company highlighting the infrastructure and software required by organisations moving from experimentation towards broader deployment.Sayantan Dev, Chief Executive Officer, Software Solutions Group, Redington Limited, said, “The AI conversation in Africa is moving from possibility to practical adoption. The focus now is on building the right data, cloud, software and security foundations to deploy AI effectively and at scale. Our role is to bring these elements together, make them more accessible and help partners confidently take AI solutions to market. Nigeria has the scale, talent and ambition to play an important role in this next phase.”The company is also holding a series of sessions at its stand covering AI, cloud, cybersecurity, software and infrastructure. The sessions are intended to demonstrate applications and use cases of the technologies being presented by Redington and its vendor partners.Nigeria has become an important market for technology investment in Africa, with organisations across sectors exploring cloud services, AI and cybersecurity as part of broader digital transformation programmes. However, the shift towards AI adoption is also increasing demand for data infrastructure, security capabilities and skilled technology professionals.Jim Mathew, President, Africa and Egypt, Redington Limited, said, “Customer expectations in Nigeria are changing quickly. Businesses are looking beyond individual products towards solutions that can address specific challenges, improve efficiency and support growth. This is where a strong local channel becomes critical. At GITEX Nigeria, we are demonstrating how technology ecosystem orchestration can bring the right technologies, expertise and partners together around these needs. Our focus is on equipping partners with the technology, knowledge and support they need to respond to evolving requirements and build sustainable growth opportunities.”Redington is also recording episodes of its Technogram podcast from the event, featuring discussions with technology leaders and specialists on developments in AI, software, cloud and cybersecurity across Africa.The company’s participation comes as GITEX Nigeria brings together technology companies, government representatives, businesses and industry professionals to examine the country’s digital transformation and the technologies expected to shape its next phase of growth.For Redington, the event provides an opportunity to engage with technology vendors, channel partners and customers in the Nigerian market, while showcasing solutions aimed at addressing the growing demand for AI, cloud and cybersecurity technologies.
Read briefing Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming part of how children learn, research and complete school assignments, creating a new challenge for parents and educators: teaching children not only how to use AI, but also how to question its output.According to observations by cybersecurity company Kaspersky, children’s interest in AI tools continues to grow as the technology becomes more accessible and increasingly integrated into everyday learning. AI assistants can now be used to explain difficult concepts, generate ideas for essays, check written work, solve homework problems and help prepare presentations. This growing use is likely to make AI as routine in children’s education as search engines, online dictionaries and educational videos. However, unlike traditional educational resources, AI systems can produce information that appears authoritative while being inaccurate.That makes AI literacy an increasingly important part of digital literacy. The challenge is particularly significant when children use AI to complete assignments rather than support their learning. A chatbot can generate an essay or provide a solution to a mathematics problem within seconds, potentially allowing a student to complete an assignment without understanding the subject. While this may offer a short-term convenience, it can undermine the purpose of the exercise, particularly where the assignment is designed to develop writing, research, reasoning or problem-solving skills.A more useful approach is to treat AI as a learning assistant rather than a replacement for the student’s own work. Children can use AI to explain unfamiliar concepts, suggest possible arguments, provide examples, identify weaknesses in a draft or generate practice questions. They can then use what they learn to complete the work themselves. This also creates an opportunity to develop a more critical approach to AI. Rather than simply accepting an answer, children can compare AI-generated information with textbooks, class notes and trusted educational sources.The need for that scrutiny is partly because AI systems do not determine whether information is true before presenting it. Language models generate responses by predicting likely sequences of words based on their training data. As a result, an answer can be well-written and confident while still containing factual errors. These errors, commonly described as AI “hallucinations”, can include invented sources, inaccurate facts or references to studies and events that do not exist.For children, this creates a different kind of information challenge from the one posed by conventional internet search. Digital literacy can no longer stop at finding information. Students increasingly need to determine whether information generated by an AI system is credible, relevant and supported by evidence.One practical way of developing this habit is to encourage children to ask five questions before accepting an AI-generated response.The first is who or what the source is. If an AI assistant refers to a book, study, quotation or historical event, the child should check whether the source exists and whether it is credible.The second is whether the response actually answers the question being asked. An AI system can produce a polished answer while misunderstanding an assignment or failing to follow specific instructions from a teacher.The third is whether the child can explain the answer independently. If a student cannot reproduce the reasoning or explain the information in their own words, the response may have become a substitute for learning rather than a learning aid.The fourth is whether the information can be verified elsewhere. Important claims should be checked against textbooks, class notes, official educational resources or multiple reliable sources.Finally, children should know when to ask an adult. Questions involving health, safety or sensitive subjects may require guidance beyond what an AI system can provide. These checks are particularly important because children may approach AI with the same level of trust they would give a teacher, search engine or other familiar educational resource. There is also a privacy dimension to the growing use of AI by children. Conversations with chatbots can feel private, potentially encouraging children to disclose information about themselves, their families or their schools without considering how that information may be handled.Parents should therefore establish clear boundaries around the information children share with AI services. Personal details such as full names, home addresses, telephone numbers, school information, passwords, identity documents, financial information and other confidential data should not be entered into AI tools. Children should also understand that the information of other people, including photographs, messages and documents, should not be uploaded without permission.The wider cybersecurity environment adds another layer to the challenge. Critical thinking can help children identify misleading AI-generated information, but it needs to be accompanied by basic security practices. Accounts should use strong, unique passwords and two-factor authentication where available. Applications should be obtained from official sources and kept updated, while children and parents should regularly review privacy settings and understand what information is visible online.
Read briefing Infinia Technologies today introduced Nia 1.0, a healthcare focused language model developed as a research and engineering initiative and evaluated against a broad range of published medical benchmarks. Further, Infinia is opting to extend access to qualified organisations through a controlled evaluation process rather than releasing the model openly.Nia is a large language model developed by Infinia AI research and engineering teams using a combination of multiple AI techniques, models, and proprietary optimisation methods. It was not trained from scratch as a single standalone model, nor was it simply post-trained from one base model. Instead, its development involved integrating and refining multiple approaches to achieve the desired performance, reliability, and domain-specific capabilities. Certain elements of its architecture, training methodology, and optimisation processes are, naturally, proprietary.Published benchmarks evaluated independently of any specific deployment indicate that Nia records leading results among comparable same class medical models. Weighed against MedGemma 27B, its closest peer of similar size, Nia leads on four of five text benchmarks, including expert level clinical reasoning and medical licensing examination questions. Full methodology and results, including the one benchmark on which Nia trails, have been published at nia.iamsaif.ai.“Nia was built on a simple premise. Healthcare AI has to earn trust before it earns scale. We chose controlled access over open release, and we chose to prove the model inside our own healthcare operation first, because the decisions these systems support carry real weight. Publishing our full benchmark results, including the one we do not lead, is part of the same commitment,” said Subhransu Sekhar Mahapatra, CTO, Infinia Technologies.Having established this performance through broad research and evaluation, Infinia is now validating Nia’s practical application in a live production environment. Apeiro Digital, Infinia’s Kenya healthcare arm has deployed the model to support an e-claims adjudication workflow, supporting the administrative processing of healthcare claims. Its team of medical experts and doctors provides the clinical guidance and domain expertise that informs the engineering and AI development work carried out by Infinia, helping ensure that solutions are aligned with real-world medical needs and standards.“Running Nia inside a live claims workflow, rather than a controlled pilot, is what tells us where the model genuinely helps and where it does not. That is the operating standard we hold across the Group: prove a system inside a real environment, keep it inside the decisions it is qualified to support, and let the results, not the announcement, determine what comes next,” said Shiraz Sonday, COO, Apeiro Digital.Nia’s benchmark results reflect its broader development and evaluation programme, rather than any single deployment. Kenya’s implementation is best understood as a real-world validation of a model already proven on published benchmarks, not the basis for those results. It is not used for clinical diagnosis or treatment decisions. Infinia is using its own healthcare operation as the first production environment for Nia before extending access to external organisations, applying the same controlled evaluation standard it intends to require of every future deployment.Nia has not received regulatory approval or clinical certification, and Infinia is positioning the model accordingly. Its current use supports operational and administrative workflows such as claims processing rather than direct clinical decision making, and access is being extended deliberately so that use in sensitive settings can be evaluated with care.Infinia is taking a deliberate approach to how Nia becomes available. Rather than releasing the model openly, it is extending access to qualified organisations through a structured evaluation process, so that use in healthcare settings can be assessed case by case.Organisations interested in evaluating Nia can access it through the Nia playground within the Infinia Token Factory environment or apply for access at nia.iamsaif.ai. Infinia expects to extend the evaluation programme to additional qualified organisations in the coming months, building on this initial deployment.
Read briefing NTT DATA, a global leader in AI, digital business and technology services, today announced its intention to launch the NTT DATA AI Factory Lab in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Designed to help organisations accelerate AI adoption, the lab will bring together NTT DATA’s full-stack AI solutions and services expertise and technologies from leading ecosystem partners, including Cisco and NVIDIA, to help scale AI with confidence.Scheduled to open in September 2026, the AI Factory Lab will support executive briefings, AI strategy workshops and hands-on experiences that will help organisations identify high-impact AI use cases, validate business outcomes and accelerate adoption on a secure, integrated foundation spanning infrastructure, platforms and services.“While interest in AI continues to grow, many organisations are looking for a practical path from experimentation to business outcomes,” said Hani Nofal, Executive Head of Infrastructure Solutions in the Middle East and Africa, NTT DATA. “The AI Factory Lab brings together the expertise, technologies and ecosystem partnerships needed to help clients identify the right use cases, deploy AI securely and scale with confidence.”Located in Saudi Arabia’s leading business and innovation hub, the AI Factory Lab supports the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 ambitions by helping public and private sector organisations adopt advanced technologies that drive productivity, innovation and economic growth.The AI Factory Lab will feature interactive demonstrations of real-world AI use cases across employee productivity, customer experience, intelligent operations, cybersecurity, networking, software development and industry-specific business processes. Organisations will be able to explore how agentic AI can automate workflows, improve decision-making, enhance experiences and unlock greater value from enterprise data.Featured experiences will include the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA, showcasing how organisations can build, deploy, secure, govern and scale AI workloads on an enterprise-grade AI infrastructure foundation. The experience will highlight the data, infrastructure, security and governance capabilities required to move AI from experimentation into production while maintaining visibility, compliance and operational resilience.Cisco intends to provide the critical AI infrastructure foundation for the lab, including Cisco’s leading networking, security, observability and collaboration capabilities that enable enterprise AI adoption. NVIDIA will provide the accelerated computing platform and AI software technologies powering generative AI, agentic AI, computer vision and digital twin workloads.“In the race to adopt AI, organisations need more than just technology – they need a foundation of absolute trust and control,” said Cassie Roach, VP of Partner Sales, AI Infrastructure & Connectivity at Cisco. “By integrating the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA into their AI Factory Lab, NTT DATA provides a secure, validated sandbox where customers can test, refine and prove their AI strategies with confidence before making a full-scale commitment, turning ‘what if?’ into reality.”“Organizations across the Middle East and Africa are moving from AI exploration to production, and NVIDIA accelerated computing and AI software provide the foundation to build, deploy and scale secure AI workloads,” said Dirk Barfuss, Director of EMEA channel at NVIDIA. “Through the NTT DATA AI Factory Lab in Riyadh, customers can experience the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA firsthand, helping them validate high-impact use cases and move from experimentation to practical business outcomes with confidence.”The lab forms part of NTT DATA’s global AI strategy to help organisations adopt and scale AI responsibly, securely and effectively through consulting, infrastructure, technology services and industry-focused solutions.The NTT DATA AI Factory Lab reflects NTT DATA’s commitment to helping organisations across the Middle East and Africa transform AI potential into practical, secure and scalable business outcomes.
Read briefing Tech enterprises, government policymakers, investors, and start-ups converged in Lagos to accelerate West Africa’s ascent in the global intelligence economy, as the second edition of the GITEX NIGERIA opening 2 September 2026.Following Monday’s sell-out Government Leadership & AI Summit in Abuja, West Africa’s largest tech, AI, and start-up event transitioned to Nigeria’s financial and economic hub for two days of breakthrough innovation, product showcases, and strategic dialogue.Held under the patronage of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, GITEX NIGERIA is supported by the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy in collaboration with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). Endorsed by the Lagos State Government and organised by KAOUN International, the global organiser of GITEX events, West Africa’s powerhouse tech and AI event opened in Lagos with a high-profile inauguration ceremony before the Tech Expo & Future Economy Conference.H.E. Dr Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, Deputy Governor of Lagos State commended the state’s success in positioning Nigeria as a leading tech and start-up hub, said, “GITEX NIGERIA is here because Lagos is consequential. What happens in this city sets the direction for a continent of around 1.4 billion people. That’s exactly why the conversation about Africa’s future economy belongs here in Lagos. The ambition of the Lagos State Government is very clear: we want Lagos recognised not only as Nigeria’s commercial capital, but as Africa’s innovation capital. A position like that cannot be declared; it has to be earned through infrastructure, talent, policy, and execution.”Ranked as the world’s fastest-growing tech hub in the 2025 Dealroom Global Tech Ecosystem Index, Lagos recorded an 11.6-fold increase in enterprise value to $15.3 billion and produced five unicorns, placing it ahead of 287 cities across 69 countries. Home to almost 1,000 active start-ups – around two-thirds of Nigeria’s nationwide ecosystem – Lagos is also Africa’s highest-ranked start-up hub and hosts 23 of the 28 Nigerian businesses featured in the Financial Times’ 2025 ranking of Africa’s fastest-growing companies.Highlighting the importance of building interoperable digital infrastructure that connects African innovation with commercial opportunities across the continent, H.E. Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General, African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, stated that “Africa should not simply import digital infrastructure systems developed for other countries outside of the continent. We possess the talent, innovation, and technical expertise required to shape our own digital transformation and ensure that it serves our integration and development objectives. We must act now; we can connect Africa’s innovation to a single digital continental market in which the African private sector can operate, transact, and expand across borders, converting digital innovation into commercially meaningful trade.”Meanwhile, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), emphasised Nigeria’s ambition to empower homegrown innovation, advance digital sovereignty, and become an active builder of technology. “As a nation, we need to be intentional if we want to be an active participant in this economy. We also have real-world problems that need innovative solutions. Therefore, we need to create the enabling environment for our young, talented people to innovate and create the digital offerings for the future economy. We are looking at our data sovereignty, our cloud sovereignty, our operational sovereignty, and our AI sovereignty. We don’t want to be at the receiving end of technology; we want to be an active builder of the technology.”GITEX Nigeria’s inauguration also highlighted President Tinubu’s signing of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Act 2026 in June, replacing the 2007 legislation with a modern framework for secure and inclusive digital identity. Reinforcing the National Identification Number (NIN) as Nigeria’s primary identity credential, the Act aims to strengthen interoperability, data protection, cybersecurity, and access to public and private-sector services.Engr. Abisoye Coker-Odusote, Director-General and CEO of the National Identity Management Commission, stressed the indispensable value of digital trust. “Connection without trust breeds vulnerability. When trust is embedded into the framework, onboarding becomes effortless, paperwork vanishes, and cross-border trade accelerates. The African Continental Free Trade Area promises the world’s largest integrated market, but trade today goes through digital channels. Contracts must be signed, credentials verified, and payments authenticated seamlessly across jurisdictions. The Federal Government recognises that digital identity, public key infrastructure (PKI)-based trust, and digital public infrastructure are inseparable parts of a single ecosystem.”
Read briefing Egyptian EdTech company 3C Coding School has closed a $3 million Seed funding round that it plans to use to expand into Saudi Arabia and develop an artificial intelligence-powered learning platform.The equity investment was led by MRG Economic Group, headed by Egyptian businessman Mahmoud Ramadan, with participation from investor Amr Saad and a group of angel investors.Founded in 2015 by Hossam Hosny and Ahmed Khallaf, 3C Coding School provides technology education for children and young people, with courses covering areas including software development, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, game development and cybersecurity.The company says it has reached more than 120,000 students and recorded a 230% increase in revenue. The latest funding comes as demand for technology skills and digital education continues to grow across the Middle East and North Africa.Saudi Arabia will be the company’s immediate expansion market. 3C plans to develop locally tailored programmes and work with partners in the Kingdom as it seeks to grow its student base outside Egypt. Part of the funding will also go towards developing an AI-powered learning platform. The system is expected to use AI to track students’ progress and learning patterns and adjust course content according to individual needs, while also providing support to instructors.Hossam Hosny, Founder of 3C Coding School, said the company’s focus on technology education goes beyond teaching coding.“When we launched 3C in 2015, we were driven by a core belief that technology would become an indispensable part of every child’s future. Coding isn’t just for future software engineers, it is a fundamental medium for teaching kids how to think, innovate, and solve complex problems”.Hosny further said the new funding would support the company’s next stage of expansion, including its work on AI-driven education.“We don’t view the next phase as simple geographic expansion,” Hosny added. “It is an opportunity to reinvent how the next generation interacts with and learns technology. That is why AI development lies at the very heart of our forward-looking strategy. Our ultimate mission is to bring accessible, high-impact tech education to millions of young minds across the region, transforming them from mere consumers of technology into the creators and innovators of tomorrow”.Ahmed Khallaf, Co-Founder of 3C Coding School, said the funding would allow the company to accelerate its expansion and technology development.“This strategic investment, led by MRG Economic Group and our esteemed investment partners, gives us the firepower to accelerate our technical infrastructure, elevate our core product offerings, enter the Saudi market, and fast-track the deployment of our AI platform,” Khallaf concluded. “The future of education will be personalized, intelligent, and deeply integrated with technology. 3C is committed to leading that transformation, building one of the region’s top EdTech platforms, and equipping millions of students with the critical skills required to excel in a rapidly evolving digital world”.
Read briefing African digital infrastructure company WIOCC Group has secured a combined $300 million investment from the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) and Vision International Investment Company (Vision Invest), providing capital for the expansion of its data centre, fibre and subsea cable infrastructure across the continent.The investment was formalised through a Shareholder Subscription Agreement signed at the LEAP 2026 Global Technology exhibition in Riyadh. The transaction will see AFC and Vision Invest join WIOCC’s existing shareholder base as the company moves to expand its open-access digital infrastructure platform.WIOCC operates in more than 30 African countries, providing connectivity infrastructure and services to telecommunications operators, enterprises and other digital service providers. Its existing shareholders include several African telecom operators, including Telkom Kenya, Uganda Telecom, Dalkom Somalia, Djibouti Telecom, Mozambique Telecom (TMCEL), Zanzibar Telecom (Zantel), Botswana Fibre Networks (BoFiNet), Lesotho Communications Authority (LCA), ONATEL and TelOne.The company has also previously received backing from international development and investment institutions, including the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and African Capital Alliance (ACA).The new funding comes as demand for connectivity, cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure grows across Africa. Despite this growth, internet adoption on the continent remains below the global average. Data from the International Telecommunication Union indicates that 35.7 percent of Africa’s population was using the internet in 2025, compared with a global average of 73.6 percent.The investment is expected to support WIOCC’s expansion across several areas of digital infrastructure. According to the company, the capital will be used to accelerate data centre deployment and consolidation, expand its terrestrial fibre network and invest in additional subsea cable assets.WIOCC Group CEO Chris Wood said the investment would support the company’s longer-term expansion plans as demand for digital services increases.“Africa is uniquely positioned to capitalise on the next phase of global digital growth. As demand for cloud, AI and digital services accelerates, robust and scalable infrastructure will be essential to unlocking the continent’s potential. This investment enables WIOCC to execute its long-term growth strategy by accelerating data centre deployment and consolidation, expanding the continent’s open-access terrestrial fibre footprint and investing strategically in new subsea assets, strengthening Africa’s digital infrastructure platform and enhancing connectivity between the continent and key international markets,” Wood said.For AFC, the investment forms part of its broader focus on infrastructure that can support economic activity and digital development across African markets.Samaila Zubairu, President and Chief Executive Officer of AFC, said, “The Africa we build must be connected, competitive and equipped to create value from the digital economy, not only consume it. Just as transport corridors enable trade and energy networks power industry, fibre, data centres and subsea cables are now essential infrastructure for growth, innovation and AI. Our investment in WIOCC will expand the open-access digital backbone African businesses and communities need to integrate, innovate and compete globally.’Vision Invest is also participating in the transaction as WIOCC enters its next phase of expansion.“WIOCC Group has built one of Africa’s leading digital infrastructure platforms, and we are proud to partner together with AFC and WIOCC’s existing shareholders as the company enters its next phase of growth. Home to the world’s youngest population and expected to account for more than one-quarter of the global population by 2050, demand for digital services in Africa will continue to rise, necessitating impactful investments in connectivity and digital ecosystems to unlock new opportunities for innovation, economic diversification and sustainable growth as well as opportunities for businesses, innovators and communities across Africa,” Omar N. Al-Midani, President and Chief Executive Officer of Vision Invest, said.The additional capital comes at a time when data centre and connectivity investments are increasingly being driven by the growth of cloud services and AI. Higher data consumption and the deployment of AI applications are increasing requirements for reliable fibre networks, data centres and international connectivity.For African markets, the infrastructure gap remains a significant constraint on digital adoption. While mobile networks have expanded access to the internet across much of the continent, limitations in fixed connectivity, data centre capacity, international bandwidth and reliable infrastructure continue to affect the availability and cost of digital services.Joshua Smythwood, Group Chief Strategy and M&A Officer at WIOCC Group, said the transaction would strengthen the company’s financial position and support its expansion.
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