E-Business
NEC Invests in XON to Accelerate Regional African Growth
NEC Europe, a wholly owned subsidiary of NEC Corporation, has invested in XON, the sub-Sahara African ICT group, and the two organisations will have an integrated market approach that will combine their local expertise in the region.
The partnership will provide greater sales coverage in the sub-Sahara African market and accelerate regional growth for both companies in the telecoms, government, enterprise and energy sectors.
The two companies have explored joint sub-Sahara Africa business opportunities for the past 18 months and identified many areas of collaboration.
Naoki Iizuka, president and CEO, NEC Europe, said, “NEC has been operating in Africa for over 50 years through its representative offices and partners. Moreover, we enhanced our operation by setting up NEC Africa in 2011.
“This has enabled us to win many major contracts with government bodies, mobile and fixed operators and blue chip enterprises. With this strategic investment in XON, we’ll be able to meet pent up demand for NEC’s solutions by massively expanding our sub-Sahara African business consulting, systems integration and managed service support footprint as well as sales coverage.”
“NEC Africa was created in 2011 and has almost doubled its revenues in the past three years,” says Israel Skosana, chairman of XON. “Their approach to creating social value relating to energy, the environment, and food and water are common to all nations and we believe their solutions that address those key issues will help this relationship to flourish and help bring about social progress in our region.”
“NEC is a powerful brand and the global business employs nearly 100,000 employees with ¥2,935.5 billion net sales in FY 2014. We are excited about the change that NEC’s world class solutions, renowned for reliability in their advanced range of telecoms network infrastructure, public safety, renewable energy and system platform solutions could bring to Africa,” said, Carel Coetzee, CEO of XON. “Their portfolio is designed to enable new consumer and enterprise services, improve the overall network service experience and efficiencies, and helps to increase the average revenue per user for telecommunication and Internet service providers.”
NEC and XON jointly carry a wider footprint across Africa to better support, service and maintain wherever their customers operate.
The NEC products and solutions complement XON’s current solutions and services and XON in turn is positioned to bring these world-class products and services to the African continent.
The mutually exclusive structure for sub-Sahara Africa will join solutions to expand the scope available to customers relating to NEC and XON’s current business lines including Networking and Security; Infrastructure and Datacentre; Information Management; Cloud; Retail; Alternative Energy; Consulting Services; Public Safety and Carrier Networks.
NEC’s Enterprise (Unified and ITPS) and display businesses in this region do not form part of the exclusivity agreements and NEC’s existing channel business will continue with business as usual.
XON designs, builds and operates high performance networks for customers in the fixed and mobile network, public sector, retail and financial services industries and provides managed and outsourcing services.
XON is a level 2 B-BBEE business. Solutions will now include NEC’s microwave backhaul, indoor and outdoor 3G/LTE small cells and NetCracker Operational and Billing Support Systems (OSS/BSS) and the portfolio of NEC/NetCracker SDN/NFV solutions.
This means that XON can now offer total end to end networking solutions from the access layer, transmission, IP Core routing and switching including SDN and NFV solutions, security right through to the management and billing platform provided by NetCracker.
NEC is a global Juniper Networks Service Provider Infrastructure Partner with Elite specialisation in Advanced Network Infrastructure.
The addition of XON’s deep IP networking and security skills set will strengthen NEC’s Juniper expertise in EMEA, which includes Russia, and will form the foundation of NEC’s regional Juniper and IP expertise.
XON’s IP networking and security portfolio complements NEC’s carrier-grade transmission solutions and competencies, its last-mile access solutions and skills, and its management and billing platform.
These technologies, solutions, and skills represent a significant growth market as Internet service providers, telecommunications service providers, and mobile networks seek next-generation network architectures capable of the scalability, flexibility, agility and operational efficiency on which to base demand for future customer services.
“Our vision at NEC is to create solutions for society. With our XON tie up we are much better positioned to bring these solutions to Africa. We expect our synergies and growth opportunities will see us develop a significant African presence through which we can better serve our customers,” said Eugene Le Roux, MD and President of NEC Africa. “Benefits of the deal include the reinforcement of our South African B-BBEE credentials to level 3, and our customers in the region gaining use of XON’s network operations centre (NOC) and security operations centre (SOC). There is also a wider regional synergy around sharing IP and security competencies across Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia.”
XON’s NOC and SOC provide 24x7x365 monitoring and support that helps customers achieve minimum downtime, rapid incident resolution, increased end-user and customer satisfaction, and increased job satisfaction of IT support and operations employees.
The NOC and SOC solutions help to accelerate network, system, application and security failure resolution, provide detailed management information to benchmark network, system and security performance, and perform root cause analysis for ongoing issues, as circulated by APO (African Press Organization) on behalf of NEC Corporation.
Microsoft is planning to unveil its new Maia 300 AI chip this fall, potentially as soon as next month, The Information reported on Monday, citing people with direct knowledge of the plans.
The company introduced its Maia AI chip in November 2023 but has lagged rivals such as Alphabet and Amazon in scaling up its in-house chip efforts as it seeks to reduce its reliance on Nvidia’s costly processors.
Google began recognizing revenue from direct sales of its custom AI chips, called Tensor Processing Units, in the quarter ended June, while Amazon has also seen growing adoption of its processors, including its Trainium chips.
Microsoft has been in talks with chipmaker TSMC to secure manufacturing capacity for more than 300,000 units of the chip for delivery in 2027, according to the report. It is also looking to significantly ramp up production and persuade major cloud customers such as Anthropic to adopt the chip.
Microsoft ultimately aims to secure capacity for more than 1 million Maia 300 chips, though component supplies and ongoing capacity negotiations with TSMC could constrain its plans, according to the report.
It unveiled its second-generation Maia 200 in January, built by TSMC using 3-nanometer technology.
Microsoft packed the chip with a significant amount of SRAM, a type of memory that can provide speed advantages for AI systems handling large numbers of user requests.
X has announced plans to discontinue its Revenue Sharing programme and introduce a new Original Content Rewards programme to reward creators for producing original content on the platform.
The social media company announced the changes at the weekend in a post on its X Creators handle, saying the new programme would reward creators who contribute original content.
“Today, we’re introducing the Original Content Rewards Program, a new way to reward creators who bring original ideas, expertise, reporting, creativity, and commentary to X,” the company said.
X said it would stop accepting new enrolments into the Revenue Sharing programme from Friday, while existing participants would continue earning until September 7, 2026.
“Starting today, we’re no longer accepting new enrollments into Revenue Sharing,” it said.
According to the company, existing Revenue Sharing participants will receive three final payouts, with two scheduled for August 14 and August 28, while the final payment for earnings accrued through September 7 is expected around September 11.
X said existing Revenue Sharing participants would begin getting access to apply for the new programme from September 8, subject to meeting its eligibility requirements.
The first payout under the Original Content Rewards programme will be made on August 28, 2026, while existing Revenue Sharing creators who enrol in the new programme from September 8 will receive their first payment on September 25.
Under the new programme, eligible creators will earn from qualified impressions generated by their original content, with payments made every two weeks.
X defined qualified impressions as unique impressions from Premium users on the Home Timeline feed, where at least 50 per cent of a post is visible.
On the other hand, “The following are excluded from qualified impressions: impressions from the same account counted more than once per post; paid, promoted, or artificially generated impressions; and fraudulent impressions,” it said.
To qualify, creators must be at least 18 years old, live in a country where the programme is available, maintain an account in good standing and have either a personal or vusiness account.
They must also subscribe to X Premium, Premium+ or Premium Business, have at least 500 verified followers and record at least 500,000 Home Timeline impressions from verified users within the previous 90 days.
X said creators must also regularly post original content to remain eligible.
“We want to recognize creators who break news, share expertise, tell stories, create entertainment, and contribute meaningful perspectives to the conversation,” the company said.
The platform said original content could include threads, videos, memes, graphics, illustrations, reporting, analysis, commentary and reactions that add meaningful value to existing conversations.
It said creators who use content produced by others would need to add meaningful commentary, context, analysis, humour or creative transformation for such posts to qualify.
“Building on existing conversations is a core part of X, but simply reposting someone else’s content is not enough,” it said.
X said minor edits such as cropping, filters, borders, watermarks, speed adjustments or simple text overlays would generally not qualify as meaningful transformation on their own.
It also warned that content copied or substantially reproduced from another creator, content downloaded and re-uploaded from X or another platform without being the original author’s, automated content, disinformation and misleading content would be ineligible.
The company said accounts that violate the programme’s requirements could be temporarily or permanently removed from it, depending on the severity of the violation.
It added that creators would be responsible for ensuring they had the necessary rights, permissions or licences to use content created by others.
“Original content is content you personally create that reflects your own voice, perspective, expertise, or creativity,” X said.
The company said the new programme was intended to reward creators who make the platform more valuable by bringing original ideas and perspectives to its conversations.
“The Original Content Rewards Program is designed to reward the creators who start them, shape them, and move them forward,” it said.
National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has introduced so-called Nigeria’s Certified Cloud Register, regulatory framework developed under the agency’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative to determine which cloud providers are authorized to handle sensitive data, such as banking records.
In effect, from October, NITDA requires banks, fintech companies and other regulated organisations to source cloud infrastructure providers from a national register of certified firms approved to host sensitive financial and government data.
The Certified Cloud Register, is expected to strengthen data sovereignty, improve regulatory oversight and support the implementation of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) data localisation policy, which takes effect on January 1, 2027.
Under the framework, banks, fintechs, government institutions and other regulated entities will be able to verify whether cloud service providers, data centre operators, managed service providers and Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure companies have met NITDA’s certification requirements before entrusting them with critical digital workloads.
The initiative is expected to provide regulated institutions with a standardised process for selecting cloud infrastructure providers that satisfy Nigeria’s technical, security and regulatory requirements.
According to NITDA, the framework establishes “a common national standard, an independent assessment process and a public register of approved providers that banks, fintechs and government institutions can rely on when selecting cloud infrastructure partners.”
The register is expected to become a key compliance tool ahead of the CBN’s directive, which requires all payment transaction data generated within Nigeria to be stored and processed locally, effective from January 1, 2027.
The policy applies to deposit money banks, microfinance banks, mobile money operators, payment service providers, switching companies and other financial institutions.
The certification regime is also expected to reshape Nigeria’s cloud computing ecosystem, making regulatory approval a major requirement for cloud providers seeking to handle sensitive data for regulated industries.
Figures cited by NITDA showed that Nigeria’s 10 largest banks spent about N177.91 billion on information technology in the first quarter of 2026, representing a 31 per cent increase over the corresponding period last year.
A sizeable portion of the investment currently supports cloud infrastructure hosted outside Nigeria, a trend the new certification framework is expected to address by encouraging greater utilisation of compliant local infrastructure.
NITDA said the certification programme will apply the same technical and regulatory standards to indigenous cloud providers and international hyperscale operators, creating a level playing field for all companies seeking to provide cloud services to regulated sectors.
The agency also disclosed that more than 85 per cent of Nigerian businesses currently rely on cloud services, with the majority using infrastructure hosted outside the country.
It said the new framework is aimed at improving confidence in Nigeria’s digital infrastructure while promoting local capacity and enhancing oversight of critical national data.
Speaking on the objective of the initiative, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, director-general of NITDA, said the programme is designed to strengthen Nigeria’s position in the global digital economy rather than exclude foreign technology companies.
According to him, the initiative is intended “to redefine the terms under which Nigeria participates in the global digital economy rather than isolate the country from international technology providers.”
The Certified Cloud Register forms part of broader efforts by the Federal Government to deepen digital trust, strengthen cybersecurity and ensure that critical financial and public sector data are managed in line with Nigeria’s evolving data governance and sovereignty objectives.
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