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Joy Agnubi
Leaders of Nigeria’s telecommunications sector and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) have warned that Africa’s ambitions to compete in an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven global economy are at risk if governments, operators, cloud providers and technology stakeholders do not move quickly to fill Africa’s growing infrastructure and talent gaps.
Speaking at the African Hyperscalers High Level Virtual Forum, NCC Executive Vice President Aminu Maida said the continent was at a pivotal time. He argued that the quality and availability of digital infrastructure will determine whether Africa becomes a creator of AI technologies or remains a passive consumer of innovations developed in other countries.
“We risk being stuck as consumers of AI rather than its creators. Countries that invest in the right infrastructure will create new productivity, new jobs, and new opportunities. Countries that fail will simply consume innovations built elsewhere,” Maida said in a keynote address titled “AI-enabled Africa: Building the Computing, Cloud and Connectivity Infrastructure for the Next Digital Leap”.
Maida identified three interrelated barriers that threaten the future of AI in Africa. The first is the computing divide, which reflects limited high-performance computing and data center capacity across the continent. The second is algorithmic fragmentation, with African languages, cultural backgrounds, and environmental considerations largely absent from global AI models. The third data divide highlights fragmented, inaccessible, or offshore-managed datasets that impede local innovation.
To overcome these gaps, Maida said NCC is prioritizing expanding in-country connectivity, increasing cloud adoption, strengthening cybersecurity, open access frameworks, and local development of trusted datasets. He stressed that achieving an AI-enabled Africa will require concerted action between regulators, operators, hyperscalers and infrastructure providers.
Telcos at the forefront of AI adoption
Chairman of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Tony Izuagbe Emoekpere, stressed the urgency of immediate action. He pointed out that AI is no longer desirable in the telecommunications sector, citing practical opportunities in predictive maintenance, network optimization, operational intelligence, and customer engagement.
But Emoekpere warned that without greater industry collaboration and strategic investment in next-generation networks, these opportunities risk being delayed or missed entirely.
Build the foundation for AI
A panel of industry leaders, including representatives from MTN Nigeria, Tizeti, NITDA, IHS Towers, Vertiv, and Open Access Data Centers, reviewed practical steps needed to support AI-enabled networks. MTN’s Bukola Ajayi emphasized that connectivity and energy remain critical enablers, noting that data centers in the AI era require high availability, advanced cooling systems, and resilient power infrastructure.
Vertiv’s Wilson Eigbadon added that Africa’s data centers are entering a new phase, where distributed energy solutions and autonomous power systems will be critical to maintaining reliability. Mike Salem from IHS Towers emphasized that no single company or country can develop AI infrastructure alone, calling for an ecosystem approach to ensure collaborative growth.
Talent development as a strategic priority
Experts at the forum also emphasized the need to develop local AI talent. Dotun Adeoye, co-founder of AI in Nigeria, warned that despite Nigeria’s young population making up 63 per cent of the population under the age of 25, the region will fall behind if it does not rapidly develop AI engineers and infrastructure professionals.
“Infrastructure and data alone are not enough; we need local talent to drive and sustain AI innovation,” Adeoye said.
The African Hyperscalers Forum, supported by Vertiv and ATCON, provided a rare multi-sector platform to discuss the infrastructure, governance and investment framework needed to prepare for large-scale AI adoption in Africa. Participants agreed that there is an urgent need to bridge the gap between computing, data, and algorithms. How quickly Africa can address these challenges will determine the continent’s competitiveness in the AI-driven digital economy in the coming decades, they said.
