MTN Partners With Seekr to Boost AI Across Africa

MTN Digital Infrastructure has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Seekr Technologies to integrate AI capabilities into its data centre ecosystem across Africa. 

The partnership will focus on deploying the SeekrFlow AI-as-a-Service (AIaas) platform to enable faster and more cost-effective implementation of AI models across MTN Digital Infrastructure's network.

MTN Digital Infrastructure, which operates commercially under the name Bayobab, delivers connectivity, data centre and communication platform solutions across its nine African markets. It positions itself as an enabler of digital transformation through infrastructure provision and strategic partnerships with technology providers.

The collaboration targets both public and private sector applications. In government services, the partnership will address digital governance, citizen engagement and public safety requirements. 

For enterprise clients, the focus will be on financial services, logistics and energy sectors through MTN Digital Infrastructure's data centre investment programmes.

Africa's AI economy could reach US$1.5 trillion by 2030

Analysis from SAP projects that AI could contribute US$1.5tn to Africa's economy by 2030. 

The partnership between MTN Digital Infrastructure and Seekr aims to convert the forecast into operational value for businesses, governments and communities by accelerating AI adoption across the continent's digital infrastructure.

The African AI market remains in early stages of development compared to other regions, but infrastructure investments are creating conditions for growth. MTN Digital Infrastructure operates data centres in nine African markets, providing the physical infrastructure needed to support AI workloads. It  is part of MTN Group's three strategic growth platforms, alongside its core telecommunications and fintech operations.

Seekr Technologies, based in Reston, Virginia, is an AMD Ventures portfolio company that provides an AI-as-a-Service platform for enterprise and government clients.

The company's technology focuses on addressing challenges in enterprise AI adoption, including hallucinations in large language models, lack of explainability, data quality issues, data sovereignty concerns, infrastructure costs and operational complexity.

SeekrFlow platform addresses enterprise AI deployment challenges

The SeekrFlow platform enables organisations to build, train, validate, deploy and monitor generative AI systems and AI agents. The technology is designed around understanding the provenance, lineage and intent behind AI models, which Seekr positions as necessary for enterprise trust and compliance requirements.

Mazen Mroué, CEO of MTN Digital Infrastructure, says: "Our partnership with Seekr represents an important step in exploring the transformative potential of AI to accelerate Africa's digital evolution.

"We see tremendous opportunity in embedding intelligent technologies across our digital infrastructure and services, enabling enterprise innovation and meaningful digital progress.

"The collaboration unlocks new possibilities for scalable impact across both public and private sectors across the continent."

Data sovereignty represents a consideration for AI deployment in Africa, where regulations around data storage and processing vary across jurisdictions. The partnership will need to address these requirements as AI workloads often involve processing sensitive business and government data. 

SeekrFlow's architecture includes features designed to address data sovereignty concerns, which may prove relevant for deployments across multiple African markets with different regulatory frameworks.

MTN Digital Infrastructure and Seekr Technologies collaboration targets enterprise AI adoption

The AI-as-a-Service model reduces upfront capital requirements for organisations deploying AI capabilities, as the platform approach spreads infrastructure costs across multiple clients. The delivery model may prove relevant in African markets where organisations face budget constraints for technology investments.

The partnership structure through a Memorandum of Understanding indicates the parties are in an exploratory phase rather than a full commercial deployment. MOUs typically establish frameworks for collaboration while specific projects and commercial terms are developed separately.

"We are excited about this collaboration with MTN Digital Infrastructure, in which our teams will deep-dive into providing AI-enabled capabilities to private and public sector entities across Africa," says Rob Clark, President of Seekr.

"Accurate, trustworthy AI outputs are essential to millions of decisions that African businesses and organisations make every day. Both organisation's commitment to customer-centric innovation makes this a natural partnership to unlock technology with the potential to deliver meaningful value to business and communities."