MTN Group, a leading Mobile Network Operator (MNO) in Africa, has announced its advanced talks with US and European firms to develop data centres in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to power artificial intelligence (AI) services.
The initiative is part of the telecom operator’s strategy to bridge the continent’s AI infrastructure gap and unlock new revenue sources for its operations.
The company’s CEO, Ralph Mupita, gave this hint during an interview with Bloomberg today, explained that the company would partly fund fund the AI data centre build-out projects while working with global partners, including AI infrastructure firms, co-investors, and hyperscalers entities such as Microsoft.
According to him, the primary goal of the partnership with other foreign entities on the projects is to construct facilities, sign up tenants needing AI computing capacity, and rent out access to businesses and governments across SSA.
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Mupita said: “We are now in the commercial negotiation phase and shortlisting partners who can help us scale. Our goal is to conclude these partnerships within the year.”
The company maintained that its AI data centre unit, known as Genova, would play a major role in its broader plan to monetize infrastructure, open platforms to third parties, and boost new revenue growth.
The MTN Group recently announced that under the Genova strategy, it had commenced deploying AI solutions to optimise network traffic and enhance service delivery in Nigeria, as part of a broader continent-wide strategy to transform its operations using responsible AI technologies.
According to MNO, the deployment of AI solutions in Nigeria is part of a series of targeted AI use cases across key domains, including intelligent fuel consumption management for data centres in South Africa, dynamic energy management in Benin, and fibre cut sensing in Côte d’Ivoire.
The latest parley with US and European firms on the AI data centre projects will enable potential partners to collaborate with MTN in deploying the AI to16 African markets where it operates, particularly where demand for AI services is rising.
While noting that reliable electricity supply remains a major challenge in achieving this goal, Mupita maintained the company was exploring all available options to secure efficient power sources for the planned data centres in markets with fragile energy infrastructure, including Nigeria.
It would be recalled that the MNO in July this year launched what it classified as West Africa’s largest Tier III data centre, named the Sifiso Dabengwa Data Centre, one of the largest of such investment initiatives in Africa.
The facility has a capacity of nine megawatts and is equipped with cloud infrastructure, which MTN claims rivals offerings from Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
Current data on AI deployment globally reflected that despite being endowed with the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population, Africa hosts less than 1% of global AI data centre capacity.
