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Gartner Says 3m Personal, Commercial Drones will be Shipped in 2017

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Production of drones for personal and commercial use is growing rapidly, with global market revenue expected to increase 34 percent to reach more than $6 billion in 2017 and grow to more than $11.2 billion by 2020, according to a new forecast from Gartner.

Almost three million drones will be produced in 2017, 39 percent more than in 2016.

While the civil markets (personal and commercial) have been wading through regulation by various governments, drones’ popularity in these markets has not diminished. The overall drone market will see substantial growth, but the dynamics of the personal and commercial submarkets are very different, Gartner analysts said.

Personal drones will continue to increase in popularity as an affordable extension of consumers’ smartphones for taking photographs and selfies and for other entertainment options.

They can fly a short distance and time, typically no more than 5,000 meters and for one hour, with flight height constrained to within 500 meters. They weigh less than 2 kilograms and are priced less than $5,000.

The market for commercial drones is much smaller, with a significantly higher average selling price in comparison with personal drones.

With more countries solidifying their drone regulations, the market is beginning to stabilize, and companies are now buying drones to test and deploy in nearly every industry.

Commercial drones normally have a higher payload, longer flight times, and redundant sensors and flight controllers to make them safer.

They are more specialized to a function, such as mapping, delivery or industrial inspection, so prices vary according to these requirements.

“The commercial and personal drone markets are increasingly overlapping, as lower-priced personal devices are being used for commercial ventures,” said Gerald Van Hoy, senior research analyst at Gartner.

“Personal drone vendors are now aggressively trying to position themselves in the commercial market. Recent technological advances blur the lines, allowing personal drones to be used in many special-purpose applications such as surveillance, 3D mapping and modeling.”

In commercial markets, new case studies are released regularly, showing savings in both costs and time, as well as highlighting increased accuracy and quality.

Agriculture was considered to be the first big commercial drone market, but pricing and economic dynamics around tighter yields and returns on investment mean that the commercial agricultural drone market is not growing at the pace of other commercial drone markets.

Gartner predicts that through 2020, the high cost sensitivity of the agriculture market will limit drone adoption to 7 percent of commercial market growth.

Industrial inspections have been much more successful, primarily in oil and gas, energy, infrastructure and transportation.

Regulations do not have as much of an impact on the market as was originally thought. Most inspections are close (within three meters) and low since they are examining equipment that is near or on the ground.

Gartner expects the inspection segment to dominate with 30 percent of the commercial drone market through 2020.

Delivery drones continue to capture the attention of the news media but will not be a major factor for several years.

The return on investment has not been proven either in regard to the cost of the drone, operational costs and a single customer delivery.

“Delivery drones will be mired in logistical issues like the time needed to return a drone to its origin point after delivery, and will amount to less than 1 percent of the commercial market by 2020,” said Mr. Van Hoy.

 “We expect that delivery drones will begin finding a niche in business-to-business applications first, particularly for internal services within one company where logistics will not be such a big factor.”


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FG Unveils AI Public Services Platform

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Federal government has launched GovGuideNigeria, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital platform designed to streamline access to public service information through WhatsApp and the web.

The platform consolidates information from more than 35 federal ministries and over 60 government agencies, marking a significant step in Nigeria’s drive to expand AI-enabled public infrastructure and digital government services.

According to Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s minister of communications, innovation and digital economy, the initiative aims to simplify interactions with government services, particularly for underserved communities that often face challenges navigating complex public-sector systems.

Developed in collaboration with the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Meta, and Publica AI, GovGuideNigeria uses conversational AI to provide real-time responses via WhatsApp and a web interface in English, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.

Sade Dada, head of public policy at Meta, said the multilingual rollout highlights the growing use of natural language processing within African public institutions to improve digital inclusion and broaden access to services.

Ignatius Willie, chief executive of Publica AI, said the platform demonstrates how Africa’s next generation of digital public infrastructure can be developed locally using African languages.

GovGuideNigeria is intended to address longstanding challenges in Nigeria’s public information system, where citizens often struggle to access reliable guidance because of fragmented government websites, poor communication channels and the expense of travelling to physical offices.

Through AI-driven automation, users can obtain information on immigration procedures, documentation requirements, public programmes and agency-specific services through chat-based interactions.

The launch also reflects Nigeria’s broader ambition to integrate AI into digital governance, while strengthening partnerships between government agencies, global technology companies and local AI startups to modernise public service delivery.


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Elon Musk to Become First World’s Trillionaire with SpaceX Historic IPO

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Elon Musk is poised to become the world’s first trillionaire after  SpaceX, his company, confirmed plans to go public.

Elon Musk to Become First World’s Trillionaire with SpaceX Historic IPO

Elon Musk

Because Musk owns the majority of the shares, it could push his net worth over the trillion dollar mark.

The entrepreneur is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X, and xAI.

Musk has been the wealthiest person in the world since 2025; as of May 2026, Forbes estimates his net worth to be $788 billion.

SpaceX has filed for a blockbuster public listing in the United States, paving the way for what could become the largest stock market debut in Wall Street history.

The company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, announced plans to begin trading under the ticker symbol “SPCX” as early as next month.

The listing values SpaceX at about $1.25 trillion, with Musk’s majority ownership potentially worth more than $600 billion alone.

Combined with his existing holdings in companies including Tesla, the IPO could push Musk’s personal wealth above the $1 trillion mark.

The long-awaited filing also offered investors a rare look into SpaceX’s finances.

The company reported $18.6 billion in revenue last year but recorded a net loss of $4.9 billion. In the first quarter of this year, SpaceX generated $4.7 billion in sales while posting a $4.3 billion net loss.

Financial disclosures showed the company holds $102 billion in assets, including rockets, launch infrastructure and satellite systems, while carrying debts totalling $60.5 billion.

Despite the losses, analysts suggested investors were unlikely to be deterred given SpaceX’s dominance in commercial space launches and satellite internet services.

Ruth Foxe-Blader, managing partner at Citrine Venture Partners, described the planned flotation as “extremely exciting.”

“SpaceX is just an absolutely sprawling, enormous project with so many different selling points, and so many points that really point to the future,” she said.

SpaceX operates the Starlink satellite internet network and also owns Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI.

The IPO filing revealed that xAI recently reached a major commercial agreement with rival AI company Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot.

Under the arrangement, Anthropic will reportedly pay $15 billion annually to access data centre infrastructure linked to xAI operations in the American South.

The filing also disclosed that SpaceX expects to incur more than half a billion dollars in legal costs from multiple ongoing lawsuits and regulatory disputes.

Among the cases listed were claims alleging that xAI’s chatbot Grok had been used to create sexualised deepfakes of women and girls, alongside patent infringement disputes, music copyright claims, data breach allegations and investigations into compliance with European Union content moderation rules.

Musk has previously said he plans to dissolve xAI as a standalone company and pursue his AI ambitions directly under SpaceX.

The filing came shortly after Musk lost a high-profile legal battle against OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman.

Musk had accused OpenAI of abandoning its non-profit mission after shifting towards a commercial model, but a jury dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that he had waited too long to bring the claims.


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Moniepoint Boosts UK Payments Security

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African financial services platform Moniepoint has partnered with open banking software-as-a-service provider tell.money to deploy a transaction security system in the UK market.

The companies said the partnership will allow Moniepoint to implement Confirmation of Payee, an account name-checking service designed to verify recipient details before payments are processed.

The integration will be rolled out through Monieworld, Moniepoint’s UK remittance subsidiary, as part of the company’s broader European expansion strategy.

Tell.money will provide the underlying verification technology, which the companies said is intended to reduce misdirected payments and help protect users against cross-border fraud.

Ravi Jakhodia, CEO of Monieworld, said: “Our goal with Monieworld is to build financial services for Africans in the diaspora.”

He added that tell.money was selected because it manages compliance and accreditation requirements, allowing the fintech company to focus on customer service.

Moniepoint is entering a competitive UK-to-Africa remittance market that includes established providers such as Wise, WorldRemit and Remitly, as well as African fintech firms including Flutterwave’s Send App.

According to data from the World Bank’s KNOMAD programme, remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries are estimated at about $620 billion annually, with digital -first platforms capturing increasing market share through open banking integrations and automated compliance systems.

The rollout reflects a broader trend of African fintech firms expanding into developed markets by adopting local regulatory and open banking standards.

Industry analysts expect diaspora-focused platforms to evolve beyond money transfers into services such as multi-currency banking, credit and investment products.


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