On August 27th, MTN Group, Africa’s largest mobile operator, declared its partnership with Dubai-based entrepreneur Tariq Al Ashram to collaboratively develop data centers throughout Africa. Al Ashram will fund the newly formed joint venture, Africa Data Hub Holding, via his investment firm. Africa boasts the world’s fastest-growing and youngest demographic, yet it lags significantly in the global pursuit of establishing local AI computing capabilities. Data from the World Economic Forum reveals that Africa’s AI data center computing capacity constitutes less than 1% of the global total. Despite this, Al Ashram sees Africa as offering “extremely compelling opportunities,” echoing the Middle East’s developmental trajectory in recent years. MTN CEO Mupita disclosed on Tuesday that the initial phase would involve constructing a 150-megawatt AI data center computing infrastructure. The joint venture aims to set up data centers in Nigeria and South Africa, which will not only manage MTN’s internal workloads but also offer computing resources to hyperscale cloud service providers, other corporate clients, and governmental entities.