AI In Africa

An African construction company is now building part of Saudi Arabia’s AI future. Hassan Allam Construction has won a contract worth about 750 million riyals ($200 million) to build the first phase of an AI data centre in Riyadh.

Major Highlights

• Hassan Allam Construction is working with India’s Sterling & Wilson on the job. The data centre is being developed by Humain, the AI company owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and Center3, the digital infrastructure arm of telecom operator STC Group.
• The contractors will handle civil, architectural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing work, plus site infrastructure.
• Phase one should take 16 months and deliver 16.2 megawatts of IT load. A second phase will take the facility to 50 megawatts, with halls built for the heavy power and cooling that AI chips need.
• Humain and Center3 agreed in December 2025 to build AI data centres with combined capacity of up to 1 gigawatt.
• A bigger prize is coming. Humain is taking bids for a 100-megawatt AI data centre in Riyadh worth about $1 billion. Bids are due on 8 November, and work is set to start in January 2027.
• Hassan Allam Holding was founded in Egypt in 1936 and is still family-owned. It employs over 50,000 people in 10 countries, made $2.1 billion in revenue in 2025 and ended the year with a backlog above $7.2 billion. Saudi Arabia is its biggest market outside Egypt.

This first phase could be the foot in the door. If Hassan Allam also bids for the $1 billion project, we will know how far its AI infrastructure ambitions go.

Kini Big Deal

AI is not only about models and apps. Somebody has to pour the concrete, wire the halls and cool the racks, and the Gulf is spending big to become an AI computing hub. An Egyptian family firm is now part of that build-out, which shows African companies can earn from the AI boom on the infrastructure side, not just as customers. It also shows where the money is flowing: huge, power-hungry data centres.

Two Kenyan startups, Neural Labs Africa and Me-Nasoma, took the top spots at the first Meta AI Academy Kenya Pitchathon. They share KSh 1.3 million in funding that does not take a stake in their companies.

Major Highlights

• Each startup got $5,000, roughly KSh 645,000, plus advertising credits from Meta. It is equity-free, so the founders keep their companies.
• The contest was organised by Meta with This Is Digital. It drew more than 426 applications, and 10 finalists pitched to the judges. Their products covered healthcare, education, financial services, retail and legal tech.
• Neural Labs Africa won with NeuralSight, an AI tele-radiology platform that connects health facilities with remote specialists to read medical images, including where internet connection is weak.
• Me-Nasoma built a platform that turns written documents and web pages into audio. It works on mobile and web, with a Chrome extension, and is aimed at learners and people who struggle with text-based content.
• Both winners are invited to present at Meta’s Regional AI Summit in Istanbul on 24 November.
• Meta’s Sarah Muyonga says partnerships with government and local groups are helping spread AI skills, tools and opportunities in Kenya. The programme also comes with mentorship.

The prize money may look small, but the exposure is not. The next test is turning that visibility into paying users and real impact.

Kini Big Deal

Both winners are solving local problems: getting scans read where specialists are scarce, and making content reachable for people who struggle with text. That is the kind of AI work Africa needs more of. It also shows big tech companies increasingly using programmes like this to find and back African builders early. A pitch competition will not make a company, but a $5,000 cheque, ad credits and a seat on an international stage can help a young team get its first real traction.

With the 2027 general elections coming, INEC says it will set up a dedicated Artificial Intelligence Division to fight deepfakes, fake news and cyber threats. The plan came out at the 2026 AI and Democracy Forum in Abuja, organised by Yiaga Africa with INEC.

Major Highlights

• The new AI Division will sit inside INEC’s Information and Communications Technology Department. It will assess new technologies, manage the risks and explore responsible uses, like data-driven risk checks and election logistics.
• INEC is also working with technology and development partners on an AI governance framework.
• The forum was themed “Safeguarding the 2027 General Elections in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”. It brought together election bodies, tech companies and civil society. Microsoft, TikTok and the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) are among the supporters.
• Yiaga Africa’s Executive Director, Samson Itodo, warned that AI-generated fake results or someone posing as an INEC official could spark serious unrest.
• Abdoulaye Sylla, who chairs Senegal’s electoral commission and the ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions, said technology must serve democracy and not replace accountability or human judgement.

• INEC Chairman Joash Amupitan asked Nigerians to judge his leadership by the reforms now being put in place, not by the 2023 elections.
• Stakeholders agree trust will decide it. INEC will have to explain how AI-assisted systems work, what they can influence and how errors or interference will be handled. Fast, credible official communication will matter when fake results or recordings start circulating.

Conclusion

The plan is on paper for now. The real test will be whether INEC can act fast and explain itself clearly when a fake video or a made-up result starts spreading.

Kini Big Deal

In most elections, a WhatsApp rumour is annoying. In the age of AI, a convincing fake voice note of an INEC official announcing results can look real enough to start a fight. That is why this matters. It shows Nigeria’s election body is treating AI as an election risk, and not just a tech topic for conferences. It also shows how AI is now a governance issue in Africa, with regional bodies like ECONEC already in the conversation. Expect more AI rules, tools and partnerships from election bodies as the 2027 cycle heats up.

People in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa are going back to school for AI, and they are doing it fast. Coursera’s Global Skills Report 2026, released on 19 October, shows learner sign-ups for AI-related credentials shot up in all three countries over the past year.

Major Highlights

• AI-related micro-credential enrolments grew 95% in Ghana and 93% in Nigeria year on year. In South Africa, the figure is 74%.
• The report ranks 98 countries on a new AI-Human Skills Synergy Index. It checks whether people are learning AI alongside the human skills needed to use it well. South Africa is 73rd globally (second among 11 Sub-Saharan markets), Nigeria is 81st (fifth), and Ghana is 89th (eighth).
• AI security is the hottest topic. Enrolments grew 236% in South Africa, 235% in Ghana and 137% in Nigeria.
• Agentic AI, the kind that carries out tasks with little supervision, is also moving. Enrolments rose 195% in South Africa, 137% in Ghana and 95% in Nigeria.
• People are not skipping the soft skills. Critical thinking enrolments rose 113% in Nigeria, 132% in South Africa and 66% in Ghana.
• Coursera did not share actual enrolment numbers, so the percentages cannot be turned into headcounts.

Our appetite is clearly there. What we are missing, according to Coursera, is employers and schools linking all this learning to real roles and hands-on work, so a certificate turns into a job.

Kini Big Deal

This is a signal that African learners are not waiting for the AI wave to pass them by. They are heading straight for the practical stuff: security, AI agents and critical thinking. Notice too that the three countries sit in the bottom half of the global ranking. Interest is high, but the gap between sign-ups and real skill on the job is still wide, and we need to capitalise on that gap.

Healthleap, a healthcare AI startup founded in South Africa, has raised $38 million to grow its platform that helps hospitals spot patients who may have a condition nobody has diagnosed yet.

Major Highlights

• The money is an $8 million seed round co-led by Sequoia Capital and First Round Capital, plus a $30 million Series A led by Hummingbird Ventures.
• The company was founded in 2022 by siblings Jemima and Josiah Meyer.
• Its software reads patients’ electronic medical records, including clinical notes, lab results, vital signs and medication records, and flags warning signs that busy doctors and nurses could miss.
• It started with malnutrition among hospital patients and has since added conditions like delirium. It gives risk assessments, not diagnoses, so clinicians still decide who needs a closer look.
• It is already used in more than 50 hospitals, including Penn Medicine, Cedars-Sinai, Houston Methodist and Emory Healthcare. It plugs into the hospitals’ existing records systems, so staff do not need to learn a new workflow.
• The new money will go into engineering, product, sales and customer support. The plan is to cover more than 40 major conditions and later move into outpatient and home care.

Healthleap is growing quickly, and top investors are betting that AI which supports clinicians, rather than replaces them, is where healthcare AI is headed.

Kini Big Deal

Two things stand out. First, an African-founded company is landing big-name US hospitals as customers, which shows that products built by African founders can compete in the world’s toughest healthcare market. Second, the AI is not playing doctor, but helping overstretched staff decide where to look first. That is a model that could travel well to hospitals back home, where the shortage of medical staff is a daily reality. For now, though, Healthleap’s customers listed in the report are in the US, so African hospitals are still waiting for their turn.

Zimbabwe has opened an Artificial Intelligence, Digital and Innovation Hub at Nyamuroro Vocational Training Centre in Gokwe North, so young people outside the big cities can learn AI and coding too.

Major Highlights

• Who’s behind it: A partnership between the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Development and Vocational Training, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Uncommon.org.
• What it offers: Access to computers, digital skills training, AI, coding and innovation opportunities for young people.
• The equipment: The Ministry of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services provided 20 laptops.
• Already running: 52 young people from Gokwe North have enrolled and started training.
• A first: The Youth Ministry describes it as its first AI Digital Innovation Hub in a rural area. Its location is meant to show that digital transformation should reach beyond the cities.
• Built on connectivity: The launch follows the Presidential Internet Scheme, introduced at Nyamuroro High School in April 2025 to expand broadband across Zimbabwe’s 2,400 administrative wards.
• Where it should lead: ICT Minister Tatenda Mavetera, represented at the launch by Kudakwashe Muzenda, wants the hub to build practical digital solutions for farmers, small businesses and schools. She also wants it linked to the 1.5 Million Coders Programme and the CYBERUS cybersecurity programme.
• The line of the day: Mavetera said connectivity opens the door, and skills are what let people walk through it.

KINI BIG DEAL

Getting internet to a village is only half the job. If people don’t have the skills and the equipment to use it, the connection changes very little. Zimbabwe is trying to do both in the same place: broadband first, now a hub with a training centre.

The minister’s challenge to the hub is also worth noting: build things for farmers, small businesses and schools, not just train people. That’s the difference between a skills programme and one that helps the local economy.

Tech Mahindra is expanding its partnership with Google Cloud so more staff can build and run agentic AI for client companies. The focus is Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise.

Major Highlights

• The training: Tech Mahindra is rolling out “Build with Gemini”, a hands-on Google Cloud workshop, to more than 12,500 associates worldwide.
• What they learn: How to create, secure and govern AI agents using Gemini Enterprise tools, including Agent Runtime, Agent Gateway and Model Armor.
• The reward: Staff who finish the workshop earn a Google Cloud Skill Badge.
• What customers get: Trained and certified people, reusable industry solutions and a growing set of AI agents. Some of the industry solutions are available on Google Cloud Marketplace.
• Sectors covered: Telecommunications, financial services, manufacturing, retail and others.
• The strategy: The training supports Tech Mahindra’s “AI Delivered Right” approach, which focuses on AI that is responsible, secure and delivers measurable results.
• What they said: Tech Mahindra’s Chief Learning Officer, Pramod Panda, said enterprise AI only scales when technology is matched with the talent and delivery skills to put it into production. Google Cloud’s Kelly Rogan, Vice President for Global System Integrators Partnerships, said companies are moving from AI experiments to real deployment.

KINI BIG DEAL

Many companies have tried AI. Far fewer have it working properly inside the business. This story is about the gap in between, and the gap is mostly about people.

Notice what Tech Mahindra is spending effort on: thousands of staff trained on building, securing and governing agents. Security and governance come up as often as the building itself. It’s a useful reminder for any African company planning to use AI agents: the tool is the easy part, and skilled people to run it safely are the harder part.

Morocco has built AI tools that understand how Moroccans actually speak, and it plans to release the first ones as open source. The Ministry of Digital Transition and Administration Reform announced them, and they were developed with Mistral AI.

Major Highlights

• Tool one: A language identification classifier that can tell different Arabic dialects apart, including Moroccan Arabic.
• Tool two: Voxtral, a speech recognition model adapted to the Moroccan dialect. It turns speech into text, even when people switch between Arabic, French and English in the same conversation.
• Open source: The first outputs from the partnership will be released as open source.
• Where it fits: The work is part of Maroc Digital 2030 and the AI Made in Morocco roadmap, which aim for sovereign and responsible AI adapted to Morocco’s language and culture.
• Who it’s for: Public administrations, startups, researchers, developers and businesses. Possible uses include public services, education, media, customer support, document digitisation and multilingual data processing.
• Who is leading: Minister Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni leads the initiative.
• More coming: The tools will sit alongside AI solutions the Ministry is building for its own AI marketplace, and more models and use cases are in development. The plan is to extend support progressively to Morocco’s national languages.

KINI BIG DEAL

Most AI tools are built around standard languages, not the way people talk every day. In Morocco, people mix Moroccan Arabic, French and English in one sentence, and a tool that can’t follow that will keep failing the people it is supposed to help.

Releasing the tools as open source also means local startups and developers can build on them instead of starting from zero. It’s the same idea as the UNDP and GSMA story: if you want AI that works for your people, you have to build it on your own language data.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the GSMA have announced a partnership to strengthen Africa’s AI ecosystem and help African-led AI solutions, including AI in African languages, move from idea to real use.

Major Highlights

• Who brings what: GSMA brings mobile industry expertise and networks. UNDP brings its development programmes and innovation platforms.
• Compute access: Through UNDP’s timbuktoo initiative, the two will work to improve access to compute infrastructure for priority AI pilots.
• Talent to real work: They will connect African talent to real-world AI applications, support the deployment of locally built solutions and look for ways to keep them going long term.
• Language AI: The partnership lines up with GSMA’s ATLAS Umoja AI, launched in July 2026 with government and industry partners. It pulls together expertise and language data from across Africa to build AI that reflects local needs.
• Who is involved: The UNDP-supported University Innovation Pods (UniPods) network, AI Labs, universities and other ecosystem partners.
• What they said: Aissata De, UNDP’s Officer-in-Charge and Regional Director for Africa, said Africa has the talent and creativity to shape AI’s future, and the partnership will connect innovators to the infrastructure, skills and opportunities they need. Angela Wamola, GSMA’s Head of Africa, said the mobile industry can help locally built solutions reach the people and businesses that need them, and move from pilots to sustainable services.

KINI BIG DEAL

A lot of good African AI work stops at the pilot stage. A team builds something clever, shows it at a demo day, and then there’s no compute, no money and no way to reach users. This partnership is aimed at exactly that gap: compute for the pilots, and the mobile industry’s networks to help solutions reach users.

The language angle matters too. Language and content barriers keep people out of the digital economy, and AI that understands African languages is one way to bring more people and businesses in.

STELLARIX Senegal is expanding its data centre capacity, saying more businesses are asking for cloud, AI and digital infrastructure in Senegal and across Africa.

Major Highlights

• The aim: More hosting space for businesses and critical workloads, plus support for sovereign cloud services and AI applications.
• Why it says it matters: STELLARIX says the investment will also make infrastructure more resilient and support digital sovereignty as Senegal’s digital economy grows.
• Who built it: The expansion was carried out with contributions from Snef, SERTEM Groupe and Kent Data Centres.
• Who owns it: STELLARIX is part of the AXIAN Group, alongside AXIAN Telecom.

KINI BIG DEAL

Data centres are not the exciting part of AI, but nothing runs without them. Every AI tool, chatbot or cloud service has to live on a machine somewhere. When that machine is in Africa, data can stay closer to home, and local businesses and governments get an option other than sending everything abroad.