According to a Bloomberg News report on Tuesday, MTN is in talks with US and European firms to co-build data centres across the continent to supply AI computing power to businesses, governments and consumers.
CEO Ralph Mupita told the news agency in an interview that MTN has entered commercial negotiations and aims to finalise partnerships before year-end. The group has already reportedly committed US240-million to its first AI-focus data centre in Nigeria, under a new business unit called Genova.
Genova will provide AI compute capacity directly to businesses and governments, while also leasing infrastructure to "hyperscalers" - these are large cloud services providers like Microsoft and Google. MTN is also considering equipping facilities with its own hardware, Bloomberg said.