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Proving What's Possible Right Now
While Africa's long-term infrastructure takes shape, these 20 ventures demonstrate why it matters. They've already built solutions that work: AI systems diagnosing diseases, detecting crop problems, teaching students, and serving communities that global tech companies overlook. Their barrier isn't ideas or execution. It's access to the computational power needed to scale beyond pilots into sustainable businesses. With compute resources from global partners, they're showing what Africa's AI ecosystem looks like when access isn't the bottleneck. They're also generating the real-world insights that shape what infrastructure should look like: which languages need support, what workloads matter locally, where investment should flow. Six are building that infrastructure themselves, creating a direct feedback loop between today's innovators and tomorrow's foundations.
WideBot AI is building the Arabic-first AI agents platform powered by its own 7B LLM AQL. It delivers enterprise-grade voice and language technologies that automate real operations from customer experience to banking healthcare and telecom use cases. WideBot's agents are already deployed across multiple government entities and leading enterprises in Saudi Arabia and the wider region proving scalability and real business impact. Founded by Mohamed Nabil & Mohamed Mostafa and a technical team experienced in large-scale model training using PyTorch and vLLM and multi-cloud deployment across AWS Google Cloud and Runpod the company addresses a critical regional gap: limited Arabic dialect coverage and enterprise-grade retrieval over Arabic knowledge bases. By combining advanced text-to-speech (TTS) speech-to-text (STT) and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) models trained on local Arabic datasets WideBot AI helps enterprises and public sector teams deliver natural Arabic voices accurate transcription and secure domain-aware responses. Through the Compute Accelerator Ready Track the team will optimize models using dedicated GPU and cloud credits from Cineca AWS and Google Cloud. With growing demand across Saudi Arabia the UAE and Egypt WideBot AI aims to serve the wider Middle East by March 2026 turning access to compute into real-world impact.
Vambo AI is advancing a multilingual AI infrastructure layer designed to transform access to language technologies customer engagement and digital public services across Africa. Founded by Chido Dzinotyiwei and Isheanesu Misi experienced AI entrepreneurs specialising in multilingual modelling and African language systems the company addresses a critical gap: the absence of reliable scalable AI tools that understand African languages and dialects which limits inclusion for more than 600 million non-English speakers. Leveraging Natural Language Processing Deep Learning speech models and predictive analytics Vambo AI provides developer-ready APIs for translation transcription semantic search content generation and voice-driven interfaces across 44 African languages and 20 global languages. The platform is powered by the Jua-Tanga model series built with the support of 80+ linguists and native speakers and is optimised for on-continent inference through a partnership with Cassava Technologies' NVIDIA GPU clusters. Through the Compute Accelerator's Ready Track Vambo AI will enhance the performance of its foundational models using GPU and cloud compute credits enabling faster fine-tuning improved inference speed and large-scale deployment of multilingual APIs for governments enterprises utilities SMEs and health and education providers across Africa. With 17000+ users enterprise use cases across EdTech fintech public sector and healthcare recognition from the Mastercard Foundation NBA Africa WHO pilots AU-EU initiatives and an expanding language ecosystem Vambo AI exemplifies a new generation of sovereign inclusive AI innovators.
Transat Management Company (TMC) is advancing an AI-powered investment matching platform designed to transform SME financing and capital flows across Africa. Founded by Mini Kouame an MIT trained and Harvard graduated Quantitative Finance expert with over a decade of experience working with Global Institutional Investors TMC addresses a critical gap the fragmented access to patient capital for African SMEs and the lack of scalable trusted deals engine. Leveraging natural language processing (NLP) few-shot clustering models and predictive analytics the TMC platform matches verified African SMEs with global counterparts based on strategic fit and industrial prowess. The engine integrates human-in-the-loop validation custom dashboards for impact tracking and AI-based readiness scoring enabling Institutional capital allocators to improve investment risk assessment generate high-quality deal flow with precision and deploy patient capital at scale. Through the AI Hub for Sustainable Development TMC seeks three strategic partnerships: (1) Access to multilingual NLP research collaborations for processing African business contexts in English French Portuguese and Arabic; (2) Technical mentorship from AI researchers experienced in emerging market applications and low-resource language models; and (3) Connections to DFIs and institutional investors who can provide proprietary deal outcome data to train our predictive success models. As part of the AI Hub ecosystem we are actively seeking partnerships with Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and large institutional investors across the UNDP network to onboard as anchor users of our platform. We also seek technical mentorship focused on MLOps and scaling our platform across diverse African markets. With early partnerships involving the African Development Bank the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and MIT advisors TMC exemplifies Africa's new generation of AI-driven fintech innovators bridging global capital and African enterprise through intelligent inclusive infrastructure.
SCADAians founded in 2017 is transforming Egypt's Energy sector through a domestically hosted AI analytics and monitoring platform for the nation's Oil & Gas infrastructure. With deep experience in industrial automation IoT and SCADA systems the company now focuses on bridging the gap between industrial data systems and modern AI bringing sovereign GPU-powered compute directly to Egypt's critical infrastructure. Building on our intensive experience with national fuel data systems SCADAians is deploying an AI Assistant Platform that delivers real-time analytics predictive insights and anomaly detection for the country's fuel supply network. The system integrates secure locally hosted GPU clusters advanced NLP models and domain-specific machine learning pipelines to optimize logistics detect fraud and forecast regional demand while ensuring full data sovereignty and compliance under Egypt's regulatory framework. As part of the AI Hub for Sustainable Development's Compute Accelerator Program - Compute Ready Track SCADAians is scaling its platform into a national AI capability aligned with Egypt's Vision 2030 underpinned by structured GPU/cloud enablement mature MLOps practices strengthened government data-sharing frameworks and strategic collaborations with development finance and energy ecosystem partners to ensure sustainable growth and regional replication
PCS AGRI is advancing AI-driven agritech solutions that apply computer vision deep learning and IoT sensors to transform agricultural productivity and seed quality monitoring across Africa and beyond. Founded by Tahar Hamdani an agronomic engineer and MBA graduate with more than a decade of experience in multinational agrifood companies the startup addresses a critical gap: the lack of scalable digital tools that help producers and nurseries optimize resources reduce losses and improve traceability. Its flagship platform Track Seeds enables automated germination counting seedling quality classification and QR-based traceability through a mobile and web application. Additional solutions including Track Tom (tomato yield and fruit-load analytics) and EcoTrap (AI-based pest detection and pesticide optimization) help farmers and agribusinesses reduce input waste enhance seed quality assurance and make data-driven decisions with accuracy rates reaching up to 99%. Through the Compute Accelerator's Ready Track PCS AGRI will optimize its AI models for large-scale deployment leveraging GPU and cloud-based processing to enhance image recognition and real-time decision support for field operations. With two patents filed in 2024 customers in Morocco Spain Turkey and the Netherlands and a roadmap targeting multi-country expansion by 2026 PCS AGRI represents a new wave of AI-powered agritech innovation building more resilient and sustainable food systems. As part of the AI Hub for Sustainable Development PCS AGRI seeks partnerships with research institutions seed companies and technology providers to validate AI models across diverse crops and geographies. We also welcome support in scaling cloud and GPU infrastructure participating in agriculture fairs and co-developing open innovation frameworks for the seed sector.
NextAV is pioneering AI super-resolution for public satellite imagery with active pilots and deployments already underway. Its platform enhances Sentinel-2 Landsat 8 and 9 and Sentinel-1 data by up to sixty times unlocking new applications in energy climate and infrastructure monitoring. Founded by Hichem Mokni and a technical team with deep expertise in machine learning and data engineering the company addresses a key limitation in today's Earth observation landscape: low spatial resolution in public imagery.
Muna (formerly Muna Kalati) is advancing Muna TV's AI recommendation engine for African children's content now in live deployment applying AI to transform learning and culture. Founded by Christian Elongue and a Ghana based team the company addresses a critical gap: the cultural disconnect in children's media. Early usage shows more than 9300 organic views with a 74 percent completion rate validating engagement and impact. Leveraging recommender systems NLP and predictive analytics and trained on a multimodal dataset of videos audio tracks subtitles and anonymized user interactions across English French Akan Swahili Yoruba and Hausa Muna TV enables families educators and content partners to discover relevant local animations improve engagement and expand access in local languages. Through the AI Hub for Sustainable Development we are seeking technical partnerships with research institutes to advance NLP for low-resource African languages as well as infrastructure support to secure the scalable cost-effective compute necessary for deploying our AI features across the continent. Through the Compute Accelerator Ready Track Muna TV will optimize real time inference and large-scale deployment using dedicated GPU and cloud credits supported by AWS and gain mentorship on data compute and scaling for low bandwidth African networks. Priorities include automated subtitling and dubbing model quantization and cost efficient serving. With live deployment traction collaborations with Google News Initiative UNICEF Ghana and MEST and a growing pipeline with African studios and distributors demand is rising in Ghana and across the continent. Muna TV exemplifies Africa's new generation of AI innovators turning compute access into real world impact for children and creators.
Jacaranda Health's flagship program PROMPTS delivers stage-based pregnancy and postpartum health information screens for danger signs and answers mothers' questions through SMS. At the core of PROMPTS is UlizaMama a localized maternal-health AI assistant built by their 100% Kenyan technology team and led by Jay Patel which now offers the options of voice on a toll-free line. Trained on a proprietary corpus of over a million real-world maternal and newborn health Q&A pairs UlizaMama responds to questions in a mixture of Swahili English and Sheng (slang). The system supports Swahili Hausa Twi and local code-mixed languages and handles about 80% of 12000 daily questions. As Jacaranda moves towards nationwide expansion of PROMPTS in Ghana where literacy rates are lower and many mothers rely on spoken communication they are piloting voice capabilities to reach more vulnerable users with fast understandable answers. Through the Compute Accelerator Ready Track Jacaranda Health will optimize its Twi models using dedicated GPU and cloud credits from AWS and receive mentorship on data strategy distributed training and scaling. They are looking forward to partnering with technical experts to improve the quality of their LLM and voice AI models across multiple African languages while significantly reducing training and inference cost. With a live MLOps pipeline a safety layer using LLM-as-judge and growing regional demand Jacaranda Health is turning access to compute into real health impact for mothers across Africa
Hexastack is advancing an open-source conversational AI framework that empowers organizations to build manage and scale multilingual chat and voice agents across multiple channels. Founded by experienced AI engineers and open-source advocates the company addresses a critical gap the lack of sovereign privacy-first conversational AI solutions adaptable to African and European markets. Leveraging Natural Language Understanding (NLU) Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and Generative AI Hexastack enables businesses and developers to design AI agents with a drag-and-drop visual flow editor built-in knowledge base and multi-channel integration across WhatsApp Facebook and web platforms. The framework's plug-in marketplace allows seamless extensions with CRM ERP IoT and other enterprise systems. Through the Compute Accelerator's Ready Track Hexastack will optimize its AI models using GPU/cloud credits to enhance multilingual and dialectal performance particularly in Arabic French and African languages. With a growing developer community deployments in telecom banking and public service sectors and partnerships with open-source contributors worldwide Hexastack exemplifies Africa's new generation of sovereign scalable AI innovators redefining conversational intelligence.
Hasab AI is building an audio intelligence platform for African languages now serving multiple enterprise clients. The platform transcribes tags and summarizes conversations in Amharic Afaan Oromoo and Tigrigna applying AI to transform customer experiences across health telecom banking airlines and public services. Founded by Kidus Yared and a growing Ethiopia-based team the company addresses a critical gap: enterprises need accurate speech analytics in local languages to improve service quality at scale. Powered by deep learning for automatic speech recognition (ASR) multilingual text-to-speech intent detection and predictive analytics and trained on more than 3000 hours of curated speech data Hasab AI enables call centers and enterprise teams to convert voice interactions into structured insights. Clients benefit from faster response times improved quality monitoring and reduced manual review. The platform integrates with leading call-center systems and its public APIs and meeting note-taker tool support both developers and business users. Through the Compute Accelerator Ready Track Hasab AI will optimize its ASR and tagging models using GPU and cloud credits from AWS Activate and Google Cloud for Startups gaining mentorship on deployment and scaling. With new enterprise clients ongoing pilots and a public API launch Hasab AI is turning compute access into real-world impact across Ethiopia. The company is working to collaborate with development partners and research institutions to expand speech-technology infrastructure and co-design AI governance safety and deployment practices suited for low-resource markets.
Crane AI Labs is advancing a sovereign offline-first AI stack designed to transform access to health education and agricultural services across Africa by bringing high-performance AI directly to low-connectivity environments. Founded by Ugandan engineers Kato Steven Mubiru and Bakunga Bronson with deep experience in digital public goods the company addresses a critical gap the absence of culturally aligned secure and on-device AI infrastructure capable of serving underserved and rural populations. Leveraging hyper-efficient foundation models (i.e Crane-Gemma) on-device inference offline AI agents and a unique AI governance benchmark (UCCB) recognized by the UK Government Crane AI Labs provides governments NGOs and enterprises with sovereign AI tools that run reliably without cloud dependence. Its platform integrates AI models mobile inference apps (TANO) and a Trust & Safety as a Service layer that ensures ethical culturally safe deployments. Through the Compute Accelerator our primary goal is to forge deep partnerships with governments and development banks to co-design and deploy national-scale Digital Public Infrastructure. We are specifically seeking to collaborate on policy frameworks for sovereign AI and to secure access to the strategic Africa-based compute necessary to train the next generation of multilingual models on the continent. The AI Hub's support is the critical catalyst to move our proven technology from successful pilots to population-scale impact. With partnerships and collaborations spanning Google DeepMind NVIDIA (Inception Program) Gates Foundation IBM and invitations from the World Bank Crane AI Labs exemplifies Africa's next generation of sovereign AI innovators
DeepLeaf is building an AI-powered plant health platform that detects crop diseases pests and nutrient deficiencies from smartphone images in under three seconds achieving 96% field-validated accuracy. The platform is already live with new launches set to begin in Q4 2025 through FarmBiz Africa and Hassad Food. Founded by El Mahdi Aboulmanadel and a team with deep expertise in computer vision and MLOps the company tackles a major challenge: delivering affordable accurate crop diagnostics to millions of farmers without access to agronomists. Trained on proprietary datasets spanning 55+ crops and 800+ conditions with multilingual labels DeepLeaf combines deep learning out-of-distribution detection and NDVI satellite and time-series models to provide actionable insights. Its B2B2C model integrates mobile payments like IntaSend and M-PESA sustaining 10000 diagnostics per hour with 99.7% uptime even offline in low-bandwidth areas. We look forward to strategic partnerships through the AI Hub specifically to strengthen our compute capacity improve our model training cycles and expand our integrations with national digital agriculture platforms. We also aim to collaborate with UNDP country offices to deploy DeepLeaf in food security and climate-resilience programmes create impact with philanthropy and impact-driven organizations that help offset costs for smallholder farmers who cannot afford digital advisory services. Through the Compute Accelerator Ready Track DeepLeaf will optimize training and inference with GPU and cloud credits from AWS and Google Cloud alongside mentorship on data compute and scaling. With partnerships reaching 3 million farmers in Kenya and 5000 farms in Qatar and recognition from the Orange POESAM Prize and EBRD Star Venture DeepLeaf exemplifies Africa's new generation of AI innovators transforming access to compute into real-world agricultural impact.
AICE Africa Ltd is advancing DataInViz a sovereign AI-powered data intelligence platform that transforms how organizations analyze integrate and act on fragmented data across critical sectors such as health agriculture finance and public services while protecting their intellectual property and giving them realtime intellegence across their multiple data ecosystems. Founded by John Kamara a leading AI entrepreneur with extensive experience in digital transformation and public-private innovation ecosystems the company addresses a critical gap the difficulty African institutions face in generating real-time insights from siloed complex and hybrid data sources. Leveraging machine learning deep learning NLP and predictive analytics DataInViz enables governments enterprises utilities and SMEs to interact with their data using natural language automate analytics workflows visualize trends build predictive dashboards and power operational intelligence across entire data ecosystems. Its proprietary engine Moesha connects internal and external datasets to produce reliable interpretable real-time insights for decision-makers. Through the Compute Accelerator's Ready Track AICE Africa will scale its AI models using GPU cloud credits improving processing speeds inference performance and the efficiency of large-scale data ingestion especially for government-scale deployments and sector-specific use cases. To maximize our impact we are particularly seeking strategic partnerships with international AI research labs for model co-development and with global technology providers for go-to-market support. Also catalytic funding for continued research to localize and democratize enterprise intelligence and data. This technical and strategic partnership will be crucial for adapting cutting-edge AI to the unique nuances of African data and institutional contexts. More than 1500 AI practitioners trained across Africa AICE Africa Ltd exemplifies the continent's new generation of sovereign AI innovators building scalable locally relevant solutions that strengthen institutions and drive data-powered development.
Armstrong Education (ScaleUp) is advancing an AI-powered STEAM e-learning and robotics platform designed to transform education and youth skills development across the MENA region. Founded by Ali Wahba and Ashraf Darwish serial entrepreneurs with over a decade of experience in STEM and robotics education the company addresses a critical gap the limited access to hands-on tech-driven education in primary and secondary schools across the region. Leveraging AI tutors gamified learning environments and multilingual adaptive curricula Armstrong delivers an interactive subscription based platform for individuals and a complete plug-and-play solution for schools: from STEAM AI and robotics labs to cloud-based teacher training and international accreditation for both educators and students. Its platform personalizes learning journeys for children aged 4-18 fostering STEM literacy problem-solving and creativity. Through the Compute Accelerator's Ready Track Armstrong will optimize its AI models and digital learning engine using GPU cloud credits and AI mentoring improving adaptive learning algorithms and user engagement metrics. Armstrong is seeking partnerships that support large-scale deployment of its AI-powered learning tools across underserved communities research collaborations to enhance its adaptive learning engine and opportunities to co-create impactful STEM and AI initiatives with governments and development agencies. The company also looks forward to strategic alliances that strengthen regional expansion and accelerate AI innovation aligned with national digital transformation agendas. With its wide operations across the MENA region over 90000 students trained and partnerships with government and private schools Armstrong Education exemplifies Africa and MENA's new generation of AI-enabled EdTech innovators empowering future talent through accessible scalable technology.
ADEX Technology with ADEXCLOUD AI Solution is advancing ADEXGENIE.ai and a sovereign multilingual AI automation platform that applies artificial intelligence to transform enterprise operations and regulatory compliance across sectors such as finance insurance healthcare and hospitality. Founded by Djaoued Allal a cloud and AI infrastructure pioneer with over 30 years of experience the company addresses a critical gap the absence of secure localized AI automation tools for regulated industries. Leveraging LLMs RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) OCR and speech technologies trained on Arabic French and African dialect datasets ADEXGENIE.ai enables enterprises to automate workflows strengthen compliance and deliver multilingual customer service. The platform provides modular offerings Starter Pro and Expert to suit small businesses and large corporations alike. Through the Compute Accelerator's Ready Track ADEX Technology will optimize its models using GPU infrastructure deployed within its sovereign cloud (ADEXCLOUD.dz) enhancing multilingual model performance while ensuring full data compliance. With more than 10 successful PoCs partnerships in banking and insurance and operations across Algeria and Canada ADEX Technology represents the next generation of sovereign AI providers building locally compliant solutions that power digital transformation across Africa and beyond.
Udu Technologies is democratizing access to high-performance GPU infrastructure across Africa, enabling researchers, startups, and governments to build and deploy AI systems locally. Founded by Alexander Tsado, a former NVIDIA PM who helped launch the company's global cloud AI business, UduTech is tackling one of the continent's deepest bottlenecks: the scarcity and high cost of compute power that limits Africa's participation in the global AI revolution. Through its GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) platform, Udu Africa GPU Hub, and Udu-Rayda marketplace, the company provides affordable, right-sized GPU access up to 40% cheaper than global providers while integrating financing, consulting, and hardware sourcing to suit Africa's energy and connectivity realities. Active in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa, Udu Technologies partners with governments, donors, and universities to expand compute access for innovators and AI labs. Selected for both the AI Hub's Infrastructure Builder and Compute Ready programmes, UduTech will scale its GPU infrastructure while optimizing AI deployments that showcase how local compute unlocks innovation, embodying the virtuous cycle where infrastructure enablers become innovation leaders, laying the foundation for Africa's moment where breakthrough AI thrives because compute constraints were overcome.
Horus Labs is building Africa's next-generation digital backbone through modular, renewable-powered edge data centers tailored for AI and sovereign cloud applications. Founded in 2022 by Raymond U. Ononiwu, an engineer and former Microsoft veteran, alongside co-founders Ludovic Bernad (COO) and Dennis (Chief of Staff), Horus Labs is tackling one of Africa's most pressing challenges: the absence of localized, sustainable compute infrastructure. Headquartered in Kigali, Horus Labs occupies a critical market position that is too technical for traditional colocation players yet too specialized for hyperscalers. The company transforms empty colocation facilities into what Raymond describes as a "fully-furnished hotel" for African AI, delivering end-to-end GPU compute that stays on the continent. Partnering with Schneider Electric as the principal design and delivery partner, along with Control Plane Corporation, the company integrates prefabricated, liquid-cooled Tier III-ready modular data centers built specifically for African climates. The infrastructure includes a self-serve cloud portal and API that enables customers to spin up GPUs locally through bare-metal, VMs, Kubernetes, and GPU-as-a-service options with pay-per-hour billing. Crucially, Horus has integrated local mobile-money and banking rails through PawaPay, unlocking access for the 80% of users without international cards and eliminating USD payment frictions. The company has secured financial letters of support for up to US$55 million on a phased basis, with the first phase of approximately US$19 million. Its flagship 1MW facility in Kigali, Rwanda, is scheduled for construction and commissioning around Q3-Q4 2026, featuring a 256-GPU inference cluster as a Year-1 milestone. The facility will scale to 8MW by 2029, with expansion plans across nine countries including Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria. Beyond infrastructure, Horus Labs deploys forward-deployed AI engineers for co-development engagements with governments, banks, and SMEs, turning national health systems, local call centers, and satellite agriculture data into production AI models. This approach delivers operational outcomes, not just infrastructure, unlocking sovereign use cases across agriculture, energy, health, and education where data and workloads remain in Africa for compliance, lower latency, and local control. Selected for both the AI Hub's Infrastructure Builder and Compute Ready tracks, Horus Labs will scale its foundational infrastructure while optimizing AI solutions that demonstrate local compute's transformative power, proving that Africa's infrastructure builders can simultaneously be its most innovative users, creating a self-reinforcing ecosystem where building and deploying AI strengthen each other.
Africa Compute Fund (ACF) is building a sovereign, GPU-powered compute network across Africa, designed to democratize access to high-performance AI infrastructure for startups, enterprises, governments and research institutions. Founded by Ian Wambai, an AI infrastructure specialist with deep experience in compute-as-a-service platforms, ACF addresses one of Africa's most urgent challenges: the limited access to affordable, localized GPU compute. Through its flagship platform Monarch, ACF provides GPU-as-a-Service, enabling clients to train, fine-tune, and deploy AI models at a fraction of the cost of global hyperscalers. Its architecture integrates localized GPU clusters, colocation in Tier III data centers, and energy-efficient power systems, delivering low-latency, sustainable compute to AI-driven industries such as fintech, healthcare, agriculture and research. Selected for both the AI Hub's Infrastructure Builder and Compute Ready programmes, ACF is expanding Nairobi's first large-scale GPU supercluster to Nigeria and South Africa, while already providing compute coverage in 20+ African countries. ACF is seeking partnerships that enable direct alignment with ministries and regulatory bodies, development banks, and private-sector leaders to deploy compute resources across Africa. ACF is designing and implementing the frameworks, operational systems, and strategic partnerships that will underpin Africa's AI ecosystem for the decades to come, systems that governments, businesses, and innovators across the continent will rely on to access AI at scale.
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