A consortium of international technology companies — Lakeba Group (Australia), Next Digital (Nigeria), AqlanX (UAE), and Agentic Dynamic (Netherlands) — have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish AfricAI, a new joint venture aimed at reshaping Africa’s AI future.
AfricAI is designed to strengthen the continent’s digital sovereignty by developing, deploying, and commercialising enterprise-grade artificial intelligence solutions tailored specifically for African markets.
According to a joint announcement, Nigeria will serve as the first launchpad for AfricAI’s activities, with the project leveraging the country’s existing national data centers and edge infrastructure. The initial rollout will focus on AI-powered applications in healthcare, digital identity, public administration, document automation, and enterprise services.
The partners emphasised that the initiative is committed to building inclusive, sovereign AI systems for Africa, not outsourcing solutions from elsewhere. “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,” they explained in the statement.
They further stressed that the vision was to create AI “within Africa, by Africa, for Africa” — a model of self-reliance in cutting-edge technology.
AfricAI plans to design a distributed AI ecosystem across the continent, enabling localised solutions for agriculture, urban planning, governance, education, and other critical sectors. The statement noted: “With localised applications in agriculture, urban planning, public services, and education, AfricAI seeks to empower African governments, enterprises, and communities with trusted, transparent AI infrastructure.”
Looking ahead, AfricAI expects to extend operations into Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Rwanda by 2026, while also training more than 100 African AI professionals.
The initiative will integrate modular, agent-based architecture, providing adaptable and explainable AI tools for industries such as human resources, customer relations, law, and policymaking. A Centre of Excellence will also be established to nurture talent in cybersecurity, ethical AI, and model tuning.
“AfricAI will prioritise the design and deployment of scalable AI solutions that address national development goals and market opportunities. Initial deployments include sovereign AI for identity and compliance, document intelligence and knowledge automation, agentic AI assistants, and multilingual health and citizen services,” the partners revealed.
Stakeholders from the four companies expressed their excitement over the collaboration.
Prince Malik Ado-Ibrahim, Chairman of Next Digital, underscored the project’s cultural relevance: “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.”
Giuseppe Porcelli, CEO of Lakeba Group, highlighted the company’s global expertise: “AfricAI marks a bold next step — not just for Lakeba, but for the future of sovereign AI. Nigeria offers the ideal launchpad for building a truly African AI ecosystem. 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.”
Demetrio Russo, Founder and CEO of AqlanX, emphasised the importance of digital trust and localisation: “AfricAI reflects a strategic intent by AqlanX to help shape Africa’s digital sovereignty agenda while enabling secure, AI-first innovation ecosystems built for scale, ethics, and inclusion.”
Eren Sivasli, Chairman of Agentic Dynamic, echoed these sentiments, saying: “We believe in scalable, domain-specific automation that truly supports human workflows. That’s why we’re excited to bring Agentic Dynamic’s segment-oriented agent architecture into this multinational collaboration.”
AfricAI now positions itself as a pioneering initiative that could set the standard for how Africa engages with AI — built on sovereignty, inclusivity, and sustainability.
