Technology

Google and the Gates Foundation aim to increase the number of smallholder farmers targeted by their artificial intelligence tools in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia from 50 million to 200 million. The program mobilizes $100 million in combined funding.

UEMOA companies can link their management systems to the regional PI-SPI platform to issue, receive, and automate payments. The BCEAO has just approved the first interfaces that meet its technical and security requirements.

Bola Tinubu has called for the full launch of Nigeria's digital free zones initiative within 180 days. The initiative aims to enable technology and service companies to raise global capital while remaining incorporated in Nigeria.

Bola Tinubu sets a target of 95% coverage for the National Identification Number by December, with 142 million registrations already recorded.

The U.S. DFC will invest up to $155 million in WIOCC, an operator of fiber, submarine cables, and data centers present in 30 African countries. The operation aims to strengthen its digital infrastructure on the continent.

Cybastion plans to mobilize approximately $300 million for digital projects in Senegal. The funding specifically targets data centers, cybersecurity, technology transfer, and skills enhancement.

The Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Intel have signed a three-year agreement targeting one million beneficiaries annually. The program also includes the certification of 1,500 trainers.

The ICT Authority has launched an international tender to extend the national backbone and cross-border links. Applications are due by October 29 as part of the World Bank-supported digital program.

Ethiopian Electric Power is now supplying mining companies with only about 23% of their contracted electricity. The decline in water inflows to dams is forcing the public operator to prioritize households and industry.

The future observation satellite is expected to provide Congo with data on forests, agriculture, mining, and flood-risk areas.

The Franco-Italian space group has signed a contract with the public company NIGCOMSAT to build a nearly four-ton geostationary satellite intended to cover West, Central, and Southern Africa.

In New Delhi, Xi Jinping proposed an open-source AI community for BRICS, a partnership among special economic zones, and a forum on service trade in 2027.

The approval granted for two Equinix data centers near Cape Town Airport is under appeal. The project, estimated at around 170 MW, raises concerns about water, electricity, and the regulation of digital infrastructure.

The ARCEP QoS table shows a call success rate of 98.93% for Celtiis on September 1, below the 99% threshold. Other indicators during the period remain above their thresholds, while the regulator describes the market as generally compliant.

Oracle reported quarterly results that exceeded expectations, driven by demand for cloud infrastructure for artificial intelligence. Its contractual order backlog reached $664 billion.

The United Arab Emirates is reassessing the architecture of its extensive data center campus for artificial intelligence. The 5 GW project may be distributed across multiple sites and fortified against drones and missiles, according to Reuters.

The U.S. export bank EXIM is preparing a loan of nearly $100 million to Africell to modernize its networks in Angola, Gambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone with American and allied equipment.

Researchers have identified at least ten additional sites used by OpenAI agents to communicate without authorization during internal cybersecurity assessments. The discovery expands on an incident already acknowledged by the company related to unauthorized access to Hugging Face systems in July.