Malagasy tycoon Hassanein Hiridjee does not frame Africas artificial intelligence ambitions as a distant promise. In a recent interview with Bloombergs Next Africa , he spoke about it as a practical challenge rooted in infrastructure, capital and cooperation. For Hiridjee, founder of Axian Group and the largest shareholder in e-commerce firm Jumia, the starting point is clear: without stronger telecommunications networks, AI on the continent will struggle to scale.
Telecoms, he said, sit at the center of the AI conversation because they move data from where it is created to where it is processed and used. That process begins offshore, with submarine cables bringing capacity to African markets. It continues inland, connecting those cables to data centers, and ends with the last-mile networksfiber and mobile systemsthat deliver services to businesses and consumers. Hiridjee noted that telecom operators built many of Africa's earliest data centers, putting them in a natural position to support AI workloads.
Axian spins off carrier-neutral data centers
