‘Africa needs data centre surge’ to keep up with the digital economy

The strides made in adopting AI and building data centres in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya need to be replicated across Africa if the continent is to be competitive in the digital economy, says Wamkele Mene, secretary-general of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

Addressing a Project Management Institute (PMI) conference in Cape Town this week, Mene said digital infrastructure requirements were a significant challenge in Africa, but also an opportunity to grow its economies and provide skills and jobs.

“Africa’s digital economy by the year 2035 is estimated to bring in over $700bn [R11.4-trillion],” he said.

“That digital economy will largely be driven by AI. We have rules. We have a protocol on digital trade that enables investment in new technologies, emerging technologies … in data centres that will power the AI in the digital economy.

“The continent of Africa would need over 700 data centres by 2035. For now, these data centres are here in Cape Town, in Nigeria, in Kenya. So there’s significant scope for more and more investment in the digital economy.”

Delivering integration could give the continent one of the greatest social and economic leaps forward that [it] has ever experienced—  George Asamani, PMI MD

According to the Data Center Map platform, Africa now has about 260 data centres:

Mene said AfCFTA’s role in developing the African digital economy will be to ensure policy consistency among states and to provide ready-made guardrails for the risks being identified in AI.

“Our role would be to create the regulatory environment where the data processing can happen, where the data centres can be established so that AI can be at the heart of our digital economy as a continent, with the risks that come with that, which will have to be attended to.”

He told Business Times that AfCFTA wanted to create an environment that allowed seamless, sustainable and “impactful investment” in Africa’s digital economy, to ensure economic and social development and preserve the digital sovereignty of African nations.

“We are simply setting out what is required for us to be globally competitive. If we continue to process and mine our data outside the continent, that obviously is not in our economic interests in the medium-to-long term. So we think that we need these data centres that will require private investment or indeed … blended finance models, but it’s not for us to invest in them or build them.”

George Asamani, PMI’s MD for sub-Saharan Africa, told the conference Africa had entered the most important era of its history, that of integration. The digital economy was integral to this, he added.

South African consumers are showing a clear appetite for AI that helps them make financial decisions with more confidence, but trust remains the deciding factor—  Thabo Hermanus, Experian South Africa CEO

“Delivering integration could give the continent one of the greatest social and economic leaps forward that [it] has ever experienced, and that is through AfCFTA. It’s a project that is one of the most ambitious economic integration efforts in modern history, and it’s designed to create a single market for goods and services across Africa.”

Thabo Hermanus, CEO of data and technology company Experian South Africa, said the company had commissioned research that showed consumers were ready to take the next step in their relationship with AI.

“The fact that 89% of them trust LLMs [large language models] to compare loans across providers shows how quickly AI is becoming part of the decision-making journey. For financial institutions, this creates an opportunity to build AI-assisted experiences that are useful, secure and transparent, while keeping consumers firmly in control of the choices that matter most,” he said.

The study found that 45% of local respondents are comfortable with AI agents applying for credit on their behalf. The findings point to the next stage in the evolution of financial services, where consumers are allowing AI to move beyond providing information.

“South African consumers are showing a clear appetite for AI that helps them make financial decisions with more confidence, but trust remains the deciding factor. As AI agents begin to support more complex financial journeys, the critical question is how businesses verify who is acting, what consent has been given, and whether each interaction can be trusted,” Hermanus said.

The report said 91% of respondents believed AI agents could help them to compare more options and find better prices or rates than they could do on their own.