LAGOS, Nigeria, September 14, 2026/APO Group: The African digital infrastructure convener, Hyperscalers Convergence Africa (HCA) 2026 culminated by setting forth a clear action agenda for accelerating Africa’s digital infrastructure development.
The third edition, themed, “Africa’s Great Digital Buildout” brought together policymakers, regulators, investors, development finance institutions, technology companies, infrastructure operators and enterprise leaders from across the continent.
It saw the participation of several notable names such as Dr Talkmore Chidede of the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat, representing Secretary-General Wamkele Mene; Sulaiman Cisse of Africa Finance Corporation; Opuiyo Oforiokuma of the Africa50 Infrastructure Acceleration Fund.
The event saw five panel sessions and two key notes where speakers assessed how data centres, cloud, fibre, power and artificial intelligence can support Africa’s digital transformation and economic growth.
One of the central takeaways was to how Africa as a continent must move beyond isolated infrastructure projects towards coordinated, cross-border digital systems. While new data centres, subsea cables, cloud platforms and fibre networks are expanding capacity, their economic impact will remain limited without reliable power, harmonised regulation, affordable connectivity and stronger links to enterprise demand.
The conference identified seven priorities:
- Create incentives for internet service providers to peer across borders, reducing the cost and complexity of routing African traffic.
- Align regulatory processes, fiscal models, technical standards and tariffs across markets. Alignment does not require identical national laws, but it should make cross-border investment and operations more predictable.
- Fund early-stage project preparation and coordination to help viable infrastructure projects become investment-ready.
- Connect pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds, development finance institutions and infrastructure developers to mobilise more African institutional capital.
- Extend subsea capacity inland through terrestrial and metropolitan fibre, open interconnection and resilient cross-border routes.
- Support local cloud and artificial intelligence workloads by investing in computing capacity, power, data centres, skills and responsible data governance.
- Ensure infrastructure reaches micro, small and medium-sized enterprises through affordable broadband, cloud services, reliable power and accessible digital devices.
The participants also highlighted major projects that could support a wider regional transformation, including Nigeria’s proposed 90,000-kilometre fibre backbone under the BRIDGE initiative, cross-border peering incentives and the development of an Oracle cloud region in Nigeria.
HCA will consolidate the conference findings into an Africa Digital Infrastructure Delivery Agenda 2026, covering regulation, capital, power, connectivity, data centres, cloud, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and regional integration.
HCA 2026 also released an inclusion report and recognised 100 women making significant contributions across the continent’s digital ecosystem. In context, the initiative was created to address the persistent visibility gap surrounding women leading telecommunications companies, infrastructure projects, technology businesses, regulatory institutions and investment platforms.
In his opening keynote, the Executive Director of Africa Hyperscalers, Temitope Osunrinde, “Africa’s digital future depends on the infrastructure choices we make today. Delivering reliable power, resilient connectivity, secure data centres and affordable computing will require governments, investors and industry to work together. Bilateral agreements are valuable, but multilateral alignment on policy, regulation and investment is essential to build interconnected infrastructure at the scale Africa requires.”
The first session, “Regulation That Builds: Aligning Policy and Digital Infrastructure Investment Priorities,” examined how regulatory frameworks can enable digital infrastructure investment across Africa. While the second session, Nigeria’s Digital Infrastructure Opportunity,” showcased the connectivity and data-centre opportunities in one of Africa’s fastest-growing digital markets. Discussions covered Project BRIDGE and new regulatory guidelines designed to stimulate local demand for data centre, cloud and computing capacity.
