Africa must own its digital future or risk exploitation, says Luminate CEO

Africa's cloud infrastructure crisis risks exploitation

Nigeria reportedly bleeds millions of dollars annually due to its reliance on cloud infrastructure controlled by a handful of foreign big tech firms, according to Melanie Hui, Chief Executive Officer of Luminate, a global organisation working to ensure digital technology serves human rights.

Delivering the keynote address at the Build 2026 Conference in Abuja on Wednesday, Hui warned that Africa risks being locked into a subordinate role in the global artificial intelligence economy unless the continent secures genuine ownership of the infrastructure powering the technology.

“My African friends tell me they will not be confined to the role of consumer, supplier of raw data, source of critical minerals or provider of low-paid labour in somebody else’s AI economy,” Hui told an audience of government officials, diplomats, tech leaders, and members of the Nigeria AI Collective. “And Luminate will stand with them in securing a better digital age.”

To illustrate her point, Hui referenced India’s Ministry of Agriculture, which leveraged AI to predict monsoon patterns for nearly 40 million farmers. Citing African energy expert Rose Mutiso, Hui noted that AI was merely “the last piece of this breakthrough, not the first.”

The initiative succeeded because key foundation layers were already in place: actionable demand from local farmers, public climate data, a century of local rainfall records, and an established SMS distribution network operating in native languages.

“Talking about AI for the sake of AI often misses the point,” Hui said, urging stakeholders to ask critical questions about infrastructure control, value capture, and who holds the power to challenge dominant digital systems when they fail the public good.

Highlighting research commissioned by Luminate by the Global Centre on AI Governance, Hui pointed out a sobering physical reality: the undersea fibre-optic cables carrying Africa’s internet traffic closely mirror historical trade and extraction routes.

“Infrastructure lives in the shadows of power,” she said. “It determines who connects to whom, who controls the gates, who pays rent, and who extracts value. The cables are new. The questions they raise are very old.”

With core components of the AI value chain—ranging from microchips and cloud servers to energy and specialised talent—concentrated in foreign markets, global dependencies remain acute. Hui cautioned African nations against confusing data centre hosting with sovereign control.

“A country does not own its digital future when a data centre merely sits within its borders,” she emphasised. “The more important questions are who controls it, who can afford to use it, what powers it, whose data it processes and where the resulting economic value flows.”

Addressing data governance, Hui pushed back against the clichéd comparison of data to crude oil. “Data is much more than this. It is people’s identities, behaviours, relationships and lives,” she said, maintaining that African communities must not be treated as passive data reservoirs for foreign product development.

She also raised concerns about language representation, noting that despite hosting a third of the world’s languages, modern AI platforms remain largely tone-deaf to African linguistic diversity.

Rejecting claims that regulatory frameworks stifle technical innovation, Hui cited ongoing societal harms, including algorithmic bias on gig-worker platforms, technology-facilitated abuse, and flawed identity-verification deployments.

“Safeguards are the allies of progress,” she argued. “Prosperity is not shared automatically. It is shared because workers have bargaining power… because regulators and courts have resources and authority.”

Hui noted recent regulatory and civic victories as proof of growing continental momentum. She cited Nigeria’s competition watchdog taking action against Meta over data exploitation, as well as Nigerian e-hailing drivers successfully unionising.

Concluding her address, Hui called on philanthropic foundations to play a sustained role by backing researchers, civil society, and labour movements, building long-term ecosystem capacity.

“The global AI order is not settled,” she said. “That places a profound responsibility on this generation to build an AI economy rooted in African agency, capability, and imagination.”

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Airtel Africa has appointed Goriola Bakare as Home Broadband Experience Lead for the continent, effective October 1, 2026, after he led Airtel Nigeria’s home broadband business and completed a six-month secondment to Bharti Airtel in India.

The appointment comes as Airtel Africa expands its broadband business beyond traditional mobile data services to capture rising demand for home connectivity.

According to Airtel Africa’s 2026 annual report, the company ended its 2025/26 financial year with 903,000 home broadband customers, an 86% increase from the previous year. Home broadband revenue grew by 119% in constant currency, while average monthly usage reached 195GB per customer.

“In his new role, Bakare will help shape Airtel Africa’s Group Home Broadband experience agenda, working with operating companies to strengthen customer acquisition,” the telco said. The aim is to “improve digital engagement, support customer retention and develop scalable commercial models for broadband growth.”

The figures point to a fast-growing business that is becoming more important to Airtel Africa’s growth strategy. The group is investing in fibre and 5G infrastructure, expanding sales channels and digitising customer onboarding and service delivery to attract and retain subscribers.

Nigeria is part of that expansion. In its Nigeria mobile services report, Airtel Africa said its home broadband business continued to record strong growth during the 2025/26 financial year. The company also reported that smartphone penetration in Nigeria rose to 54.9%, from 49.6% in the previous year.

“The appointment represents a further step in Bakare’s career at Airtel,” said the telecom. “Where he has held senior responsibilities spanning commercial strategy, product development, digital innovation and business performance.”

Bakare’s appointment places him in a position to help translate that growth into a more consistent customer experience across the group’s markets. His responsibilities include identifying commercial practices that can be adapted across operating companies, improving digital customer journeys and supporting a scalable home broadband operating framework.

Before his new role, Bakare served as Acting Director of Home Broadband Business at Airtel Nigeria from October 2024 to March 2026. He oversaw revenue growth, product strategy, customer acquisition and retention, customer lifecycle management and strategic partnerships.

From April to September 2026, he was seconded to Bharti Airtel in India through the company’s Talent Exchange Programme. He worked with senior leaders and cross-functional teams to study the Indian business’s broadband strategies, operating models and customer experience practices, with a view to applying relevant lessons across Airtel Africa’s markets.

Bakare joined Airtel in 2009 after working in financial services, including roles at Skye Bank and Pacific Holdings. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Banking and Finance and an MBA in Strategic Management from Babcock University, Nigeria, and is an alumnus of Airtel Africa’s inaugural India-Africa Global Accelerator Programme.

Africa’s mobile networks have expanded significantly over the past decade, bringing coverage to more people. But wider coverage has not translated into widespread internet use or network quality on par with other regions.

A new report by the GSMA, Spectrum Policy in Africa: Enabling Investment and Empowering Consumers Through Effective Spectrum Pricing, identifies the high cost of accessing radio spectrum—the invisible radio frequencies that carry mobile calls and internet data—as a central bottleneck. African mobile operators pay significantly more for relatively less spectrum, leaving them with limited capacity to expand or improve service quality.

According to GSMA Intelligence, spectrum costs consume 0.82% of mobile operators’ revenue per 100 MHz in Africa, compared with 0.66% in the rest of the world. Meanwhile, African operators hold an average of about 570 MHz of spectrum below 7 GHz, 24% less than the global peer average of approximately 750 MHz.

The imbalance extends beyond price and availability to licence duration. Only nine African countries routinely grant spectrum licences lasting 20 years or more, while licences of 20 years or indefinite duration are standard across Europe, North America and developed Asian markets.

Lowering spectrum fees could free up vital capital for network expansion, but lower fees alone do not guarantee better connectivity. The crucial test for African regulators is whether more affordable access can be tied to measurable improvements in network quality and internet adoption, particularly in underserved communities where initial financial returns remain low.