MTN and Dubai Investor Tarek Al Ashram Form Venture for African AI Infrastructure Expansion

MTN Group, Africa’s largest telecom operator, is partnering with Dubai-based investor Tarek Al Ashram to develop a 150-megawatt AI-ready data centre network across Africa, in a move that positions the telecom giant deeper into the continent’s fast-growing artificial intelligence infrastructure market. The partnership brings together MTN’s pan-African telecom and fibre infrastructure with Al Ashram’s experience in building large-scale data centres in the Middle East. Al Ashram, co-founder of Gulf Data Hub, which is backed by KKR and Company, will use his investment firm to back the newly formed Africa Data Hub Holding venture, according to a report published by Bloomberg. While the funding commitment has not been disclosed, industry estimates put the potential cost of building 150 megawatts of AI data centre capacity at between 3 billion and 6 billion dollars.

The partnership forms part of MTN’s broader strategy to evolve beyond a traditional connectivity company under its Ambition 2030 framework, seeking growth from connectivity, financial services, and digital infrastructure. AI data centres provide the essential computing power required for cloud services, artificial intelligence, digital payments, enterprise applications, and government technology systems. MTN has identified Nigeria and South Africa as the initial markets for the rollout, disclosing the 150-megawatt plan in its first-half 2026 results. Group CEO Ralph Mupita confirmed that MTN is taking a partnership-led, phased approach to its artificial intelligence business, noting that the company has already started preparing by acquiring land and negotiating power agreements.

This initiative addresses a critical gap in the regional technology landscape, as Africa currently accounts for less than one percent of global AI data centre capacity, according to World Economic Forum data. While the continent hosts more than 210 data centres, most conventional facilities are designed for basic websites, databases, and standard cloud workloads rather than the high-performance computing required to train artificial intelligence models. Mastercard estimates that Africa’s artificial intelligence market could grow from about 4.5 billion dollars in 2025 to 16.5 billion dollars by 2030, underscoring the urgent need for local computing power to support domestic businesses, developers, and governments without relying entirely on overseas infrastructure.

Why This Matters

The deployment of high-capacity artificial intelligence infrastructure within Africa addresses fundamental challenges regarding data sovereignty, latency, and digital self-reliance. By establishing local computing facilities in major economic hubs like Nigeria and South Africa, the venture mitigates the operational and security risks associated with routing sensitive enterprise and government data through overseas servers. This local availability of high-performance computing power ensures that African enterprises and public institutions can process transactions and deploy advanced digital applications with significantly reduced latency, strengthening the overall resilience of the continent's digital economy.

Furthermore, the heavy resource requirements of artificial intelligence infrastructure tie digital expansion directly to critical utilities and industrial development. Because AI data centres demand vastly more electricity and specialised technical engineering than conventional facilities, large-scale projects of this magnitude compel investors and operators to engage deeply with local power generation, land acquisition, and fibre network expansion. This creates an interconnected foundation where telecommunications growth directly stimulates improvements in national power and physical infrastructure networks across the designated operating regions.

Opportunities

• Power Contractors: Opportunities to secure long-term energy supply agreements, renewable integration contracts, and grid connection projects to power high-capacity data facilities.
• Fibre Integrators: Commercial openings to expand and connect high-speed backhaul networks to the newly established regional data hubs.
• Real Estate Developers: Prospects for acquiring and preparing industrial land parcels suited for heavy technical infrastructure in Nigeria and South Africa.
• Technology Financiers: Avenues to structure multi-billion dollar capital investments and syndicated funding packages for large-scale digital infrastructure ventures.

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