E-Business
How Africa Can Turn the AI Wave into Inclusive Growth
By Shameel Joosub
For centuries, Africa has powered global economic growth through its resources, labour, and human potential, yet too little of that prosperity has been realised on the continent itself. Today, artificial intelligence presents a rare opportunity to change that trajectory.
As the global economic order undergoes its most significant transformation since the end of the Second World War, Africa stands at a decisive inflection point.
With the world’s youngest population, rapidly expanding digital adoption, and vast untapped potential, Africa is uniquely positioned not just to participate in the AI era, but to help shape it.
Realising this opportunity, however, will require deliberate investment, enabling regulation, and a commitment to ensuring that the benefits of AI reach all 1.5 billion people across the continent.
When I reflect on AI, what strikes me most is that it is enabled by humanity.
Intelligence is fundamentally human, and AI is an extraordinary amplifier of human creativity and capability.
It is not about replacing people. It is about empowering them to do more, faster, and better.
While this progress is remarkable, our responsibility as African businesses is to extend these capabilities beyond our corporate walls so that AI can unlock Africa’s underutilised potential and drive inclusive growth.
Unlocking Africa’s Potential Across Industries
As a purpose-led African connectivity and digital services company serving 223.2 million customers across South Africa, the DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Tanzania, Vodacom has invested strategically in AI across multiple sectors.
Our mobile networks reach a population of 588 million people. That reach must translate into opportunity.
Consider agriculture. One of our subsidiary companies, Mezzanine, leverages AI to unlock previously invisible insights into soil composition, empowering farmers to make data-driven decisions that improve crop yields and profitability.
When farmers thrive, food security strengthens and rural communities prosper. That is inclusive growth in action.
In financial services, AI is strengthening trust and security. In Kenya, Graph Network Analytics enhances M-Pesa fraud detection by mapping money movements in real time, helping protect more than 37 million customers who rely on the service in their daily lives.
As criminals target digital payment platforms, AI helps predict and prevent fraud scenarios, including SIM swap fraud and identity theft.
AI is also supporting national infrastructure. In South Africa, connectivity and IoT solutions monitor coal transport in real time from pit to port to power station.
This improves operational efficiency and supports energy security, addressing critical infrastructure challenges that have constrained economic growth.
These are not isolated examples. They represent a broader truth. Technology delivers its greatest value when it solves real problems for real people.
The Infrastructure Imperative: Modernising Regulation
Yet none of this is possible without one fundamental prerequisite: connectivity. Connectivity requires sustained investment in infrastructure, supportive policy environments, and regulatory frameworks that enable innovation.
If Africa is serious about universal access, modern and enabling regulation is essential. Spectrum licensing must be efficient and predictable. Infrastructure sharing must be supported. Universal service funds must be effectively deployed. Administrative barriers to infrastructure rollout must be reduced. Cloud and data platforms, which power AI capabilities, must be supported through enabling policy environments. These are not peripheral issues. They are fundamental to accelerating Africa’s digital and economic transformation.
These challenges represent only a portion of the regulatory barriers that must be addressed to deliver affordable, reliable connectivity to all Africans.
Pan-African Coordination: Our Collective Responsibility
Africa’s greatest advantage is its youth, but demographics alone will not deliver growth. To realise this potential, we must actively skill up young people in our schools and universities so they can take full advantage of an AI-driven future.
That requires modernising education curricula to embed AI literacy, data capability and practical problem-solving at scale. Companies like Vodacom are investing in digital skills development, but unlocking Africa’s potential will require coordinated action across government, academia and industry.
This is why governments and intergovernmental institutions such as the African Development Bank Group, the African Union, SADC, ECOWAS, and other regional bodies play a critical role in harmonising regulatory frameworks across the continent. Greater coordination can accelerate investment, enable scale, and support the development of an integrated digital economy.
Pan-African alignment of telecommunications regulation is not merely a technical objective. It is essential to unlocking inclusive growth and ensuring that Africa can compete effectively in the global digital economy.
Our Moment
Africa has long contributed to global progress. In the AI era, it has the opportunity to define its own future as a creator of innovation, productivity, and inclusive growth. The foundations are already in place. Our young population, expanding connectivity, and accelerating digital adoption position the continent to lead in ways that were not previously possible.
But this outcome is not guaranteed. It depends on the choices we make now. By modernising regulation, investing in connectivity as foundational infrastructure, and ensuring that AI empowers individuals, businesses, and communities, Africa can secure its place as a central force in the global digital economy.
That is the Africa I believe in. That is the Africa we are building at Vodacom, connecting people, enabling opportunity, and ensuring that technology serves the progress of society as a whole
Shameel Joosub, is group Chief Executive Officer, Vodacom Group
Source: Tech Africa News
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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