AfCEN

"AfCEN was built to be Africa's neural network for development–connecting clean power, capital and data so the continent can own its digital future. Being selected into the UNDP AI Hub's infrastructure track is a powerful signal that sustainable, sovereign compute is now core development infrastructure for Africa. Our role is to be the Africa partner-platform: aligning renewable energy, AI-ready data centers, and digital infrastructure with climate-smart finance so that governments, DFIs, investors and innovators can build on shared rails and turn local insight into investable, AI-powered projects at scale."

The Africa Climate and Energy Nexus (AfCEN) is building the continent's first integrated, AI-first platform connecting renewable energy infrastructure, green finance and AI-powered data ecosystems to drive sustainable and sovereign compute across Africa. As the Africa partner-platform within the UNDP AI Hub's infrastructure track, AfCEN is designed as a development operating system – a common rail on which governments, DFIs, investors and innovators can build and scale solutions. Founded by Joseph Nganga, who led the inaugural Africa Climate Summit in 2023, AfCEN tackles a foundational challenge for the continent: the lack of affordable, low-carbon energy and trusted digital infrastructure to power the next generation of AI and data-intensive services. AfCEN's architecture links clean energy generation, climate-aligned investment pipelines and AI-based mapping tools that identify optimal sites for green data corridors, renewables-powered data centres and compute hubs that safeguard African data sovereignty. Through programmable project-preparation rails, risk analytics and impact tracking, AfCEN works with governments, investors and regional blocs to align renewable deployment with digital expansion and local industrial strategies. Backed by its collaboration with the UNDP AI Hub for Sustainable Development, AfCEN's roadmap includes flagship initiatives such as the Lobito Corridor and an emerging programme with the Coalition of African Ministers of Finance and the African Green Climate Finance National Designated Authorities Network (AfDAN) to design AI-ready, green infrastructure country platforms in an initial set of pilot countries. Together, these initiatives showcase how clean energy, digital infrastructure and AI-enabled planning intersect in real project pipelines, and how data-driven, climate-smart infrastructure can be embedded in sovereign decision-making. With its focus on energy sovereignty, climate-smart compute and Africa-owned data infrastructure, AfCEN is laying the foundation for Africa's green AI and broader agentic economy – where data, power and prosperity evolve together, and where African institutions and communities co-design the tools built on top of the platform