In a move to advance Africa’s technology landscape, four firms — Lakeba Group (Australia), Next Digital (Nigeria), AqlanX (UAE), and Agentic Dynamic (Netherlands) — have entered an MoU to create AfricAI, a joint venture dedicated to artificial intelligence.
The initiative will begin operations in Nigeria, leveraging existing data and infrastructure to deliver AI-enabled services in healthcare, administration, enterprise, and identity systems. AfricAI ultimately seeks to empower Africa to produce context-aware AI that reflects local needs.
Building AI Capacity in Africa
AfricAI’s approach emphasizes development within the continent, rather than outsourcing. The joint venture envisions a distributed AI network across Africa that supports local needs in agriculture, urban planning, education, and citizen services. By 2026, AfricAI intends to expand operations into Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Rwanda, while training more than 100 professionals to strengthen regional expertise in AI development and deployment.
Focus Areas
The joint venture will focus on applications that combine technical innovation with local governance requirements. This includes developing secure digital identity and document automation systems, advancing healthcare and education technologies, and integrating agent-based AI architectures for adaptable and explainable use across human resources, legal, and policy sectors.
AfricAI also plans to establish a Center of Excellence to support skills development in AI engineering, cybersecurity, model training, and ethical deployment. Leveraging Nigeria’s cloud and edge infrastructure, the initiative will ensure that sensitive data and AI workloads remain under local control in line with national data residency rules.
Strengthening Digital Sovereignty
By embedding compliance, multilingual capabilities, and secure access controls, AfricAI aims to provide a foundation for trustworthy AI adoption across both public and private sectors. Pilot projects are expected to include government services, financial technologies, healthcare, and utilities, with the broader goal of supporting digital sovereignty and interoperability across African countries.
Partner Perspectives
Prince Malik Ado-Ibrahim, Chairman of Next Digital, said:
“AfricAI is about building AI capacity within Africa. Nigeria provides the right foundation for this effort, and through collaboration we aim to shape AI that is aligned with local needs and aspirations.”
Giuseppe Porcelli, CEO of Lakeba Group, said:
“Nigeria represents an important starting point for creating a sustainable AI ecosystem in Africa. AfricAI will help ensure that infrastructure and innovation are built locally, with long-term growth in mind.”
Demetrio Russo, CEO of AqlanX, said:
“Digital trust and multilingual compliance are central to AfricAI. This venture will support Africa’s digital sovereignty agenda and enable secure innovation at scale.”
Eren Sivaslı, Chairman of Agentic Dynamic, said:
“Our focus is on scalable automation that complements human workflows. AfricAI gives us the opportunity to apply our agent-based architecture within a collaborative, international framework.”
About the Partners
Next Digital is a Nigerian company developing locally designed digital solutions across AI and infrastructure, with a mission to strengthen African countries’ ability to manage their digital futures.
Lakeba Group is a venture studio based in Sydney, Australia, with a track record of building and commercializing technology ventures in AI, cybersecurity, and digital infrastructure.
AqlanX is a UAE-based company specializing in enterprise AI solutions, with a focus on multilingual automation and secure digital transformation across industries such as government, finance, and healthcare.
Agentic Dynamic is a technology company founded in Amsterdam. The company develops enterprise AI platforms based on multi-agent architectures and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).