In a move that is set to change the landscape of artificial intelligence (AI) in Africa, global technology firms and a local partner have officially launched AfricAI, a joint venture that is aiming to build Africa’s first sovereign AI system, with Nigeria serving as the flagship market.
Four key players have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to bring this project to life. They include Nigeria’s Next Digital, Australia’s Lakeba Group, UAE-based AqlanX, and the Netherlands’ Agentic Dynamic. They are all united by a mission to give Africa the chance to be an active creator and exporter of cutting-edge AI technology as opposed to the continent being a passive consumer of the technology.
At the heart of this joint venture is the belief that AI solutions must be developed with Africa in mind and to commercialize these locally tailored AI solutions for enterprise needs. “We are bringing together four complementary pillars – global IP, regional expertise, deployment excellence, and next-gen agentic AI architecture – to create an AI foundation that reflects African realities,” the founding partners said in a joint statement.
As such, AfricAI will deploy AI tailored solutions across sectors like healthcare, digital identity, document automation, and public administration, enterprise services, agriculture and urban planning. Enterprise AI will be built to facilitate smarter legal, HR and compliance workflows. And these deployments will align with data residency laws, ensuring that sensitive data and AI processing remain under local control.
Spanning private-public sectors, the joint venture says pilot projects from AfricAI will include AI tools for digital ID verification and compliance, semantic indexing of public and legal records, modular AI HR and policy agents, as well as multilingual virtual assistants for healthcare and citizen services.
Accompanying the AfricAI project is also the establishment of a Center of Excellence (CoE) in Nigeria. This facility will focus on building regional talent across AI development, cybersecurity and its ethical deployment. “Lakeba has long been at the forefront of global AI innovation,” Giuseppe Porcelli, CEO of Lakeba Group said. “With our flagship DoxAI platform and deep capabilities in cybersecurity, automation, and orchestration, we are proud to architect the AI infrastructure Africa needs and deserves.”
With the aim to expand this project’s operations to more African countries (Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Rwanda) by 2026, the project also has it in motion to train over 100 professionals to strengthen expertise in AI development and deployment.
This multi-country approach aims to create a distributed AI network that is built to address diverse challenges across different African countries. And the expansion will be aligned to and supported by existing digital infrastructure in these countries, by leveraging already existing data centers and other computing capabilities.
For one, this move aligns with Nigeria’s AI strategy and complements existing government initiatives, including the National AI Trust and various partnerships with global tech companies like Google, Meta, and Microsoft, and the Gates Foundation.
“At Next Digital, we’re not just deploying AI – we’re shaping it to reflect who we are as Nigerians and Africans,” Next Digital Chairman, Prince Malik Ado-Ibrahim said. “AfricAI is about more than software. It’s about exporting our intelligence, building our future on our terms, and making Africa a force in the global AI conversation. Nigeria will lead that movement – and we are ready.”
The launch of AfricAI comes at a pivotal moment for the continent’s AI ecosystem. Nigeria’s AI market is projected to grow at 27.08% annually from 2025 to 2030, potentially contributing around $15 billion to Nigeria’s GDP by the end of the decade. For the broader AI market in Africa, it is expected to grow from the current estimated value of $4.5 billion to $16.5 billion by 2030.
