Technology
Airtel Nigeria Unveils Commercial Data Centre to Support Businesses
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
A state-of-the-art tier 3 commercial data centre has been launched by Airtel Nigeria in the Lekki area of Lagos State.
The facility was commissioned on Tuesday, April 12, 2022, by the leading telecommunications services provider to help provide perfect uptime and peerless security for servers it houses as well as cloud services for businesses and government establishments across the country.
Awarded the high-end Tier 3 ANSI/TIA-942 certification by EPI, the world’s leading certification body for data centres, the Airtel ultra-modern data centre runs on a superior technology that enables it to perform efficiently in Nigeria’s tropical climate while also providing multiple paths and backups to its users.
According to the MD/CEO of Airtel Nigeria, Mr Surendran Chemmenkotil, the launch of the data centre is in response to its overarching objective of promoting digital inclusion as well as creating unfettered access and opportunities for entrepreneurs, businesses, and other organizations to enjoy premium data centre services in a world-class and reliable facility.
“With over 20 years of extensive telecoms, technological and consumer-empowering operations in Nigeria, we are best positioned to support businesses and government establishments with an incomparable data centre that will help advance commerce and ultimately expand the nation’s economy, driving growth and prosperity for entrepreneurs and consumers,” he said.
On the part of the Director of Airtel Business at Airtel Nigeria, Ms Ogo Ofomata, “We are inspiring and pioneering a new wave in Nigeria’s data centre landscape as we offer a compelling and affordable data centre to both large enterprises and small and medium scale businesses.”
“Through our data centre, businesses will benefit from uninterrupted power and hyper-secure storage for servers and data transmission equipment for various sizes of private and public sector establishments,” she further said.
During his tour of the facility, which is in Lekki, Lagos, the Commissioner for Science and Technology, Lagos State, Mr Hakeem Fahm, commended Airtel for its investment in the development of science and technology in Lagos State, noting that the Airtel data centre aligns with the State’s mega city plan, especially regarding the government’s aspirations in technology.
“I commend the management of Airtel Nigeria for their impactful contributions in Lagos State and the country at large, thanks to their innovative drive in Technology,” he said, adding that, “this data centre has further contributed to placing the state as a technology hub in the country at large.”
The Airtel Data Centre commenced full operations immediately. The tier 3 data centre possesses multiple paths for power and cooling, as well as redundant systems that allow staff to work on the setup without taking it offline.
The Airtel data centre is positioned to power vast financial, communications, and other forms of enterprises – both large and small – in Nigeria.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
A leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) computing firm, NVIDIA, has made an undisclosed investment in Cassava Technologies.
NVIDIA joins Cassava’s impressive roster of investors comprising Econet Group, British International Investment, DFC, Finnfund, Fund for Export Development in Africa (Afreximbank/FEDA), Gateway Capital, Google LLC, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Public Investment Corporation and Royal Bafokeng Holdings.
Cassava operates across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America through a strong portfolio of business units comprising Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Africa Data Centres, Liquid C2, Cassava.ai, and Sasai Fintech, all of which are leaders in their respective sectors.
The organisation will continue collaborating with its partners and customers on the continent and beyond, establishing it as a leading technology company of African heritage.
“Cassava is Africa’s leading technology company, driving the continent’s digital transformation with digital infrastructure and digital services.
“Securing this investment is an important milestone that we expect to unlock additional value from and catalyze the further expansion of our digital infrastructure and services to bridge the digital divide on the continent,” the chief executive of Cassava, Mr Hardy Pemhiwa, stated.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
To deepen access to smartphones and digital services for underserved communities, Airtel Africa Foundation has joined forces with others to train some persons in Rwanda.
This aligns with Rwanda’s ambition to become a knowledge-based economy and complements national programmes such as Connect Rwanda.
The organisation is collaborating with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA) and Cisco on capacity and digital skills development under the Digital Transformation Centres (DTC) Initiative.
The parties will bridge the digital divide and promote digital inclusion by providing free Internet connectivity and digital skills training to underserved communities in the country, in connection with the advancement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
ITU will provide digital skills training content to the DTCs under the Initiative along with other ITU regional capacity development activities. In addition, ITU will facilitate networking opportunities related to promoting digital literacy and inclusion, which will enable access to expertise and best practices.
It was disclosed that Airtel Africa Foundation, through Airtel Rwanda, would equip DTC locations with routers, Wi-Fi and data packages at no cost, ensuring the effective rollout of training and access to digital educational platforms.
According to the chief executive of Airtel Rwanda, Mr Sujay Chakrabarti, the collaboration marks a significant step forward in bridging the digital divide and empowering Rwandan youth with digital skills.
He described the partnership as “a powerful example of what happens when government, private sector, and international organizations come together to empower communities.”
“This partnership reflects our commitment to supporting national development goals and closing the digital divide through meaningful collaboration,” said the Head of Programs at Airtel Africa Foundation, Ms Esi Asare Prah, said on behalf of the chairman of the foundation, Mr Segun Ogunsaya.
“We are honoured to partner with ITU to bring this vision to life and contribute to Rwanda’s journey toward becoming a digitally empowered society,” he added.
Also, the Regional Director for International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Mr Emmanuel Mannaseh, said, “Our partnership with Airtel Africa Foundation begins in Rwanda, where we are joining forces to strengthen digital skills in underserved communities to advance connectivity. This initiative lays the groundwork for broader regional collaboration, as we aim to expand this work to other Digital Transformation Centres across Africa.”
On his part, the chief executive of Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA), Mr Antoine Sebera, said, “What we are seeing here today is partnership in action. Statistics show that 900 million people in Africa remain unconnected, extra effort needs to be made to make sure that no one is left behind.
“This positions Rwanda a step ahead by being intentional to involve the youth. These centres are going to play a transformative role in educating the youth to leverage AI. Digital Transformation is driving the world and Africa or Rwanda cannot be left behind.”
By Faridat Yusuf
OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, has launched a new web browser called ChatGPT Atlas, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and is said to be a big competition to Google Chrome and other browsers.
The new browser, which was announced on Tuesday, aims to change the way people search and browse online. Instead of typing keywords like on Google, users can just talk to ChatGPT inside the browser, and it will summarise information or even do tasks for them.
According to Reuters, OpenAI already has about 800 million weekly users on ChatGPT, and with Atlas, the company is now trying to bring AI into people’s daily internet use.
Atlas allows users to open a ChatGPT sidebar in any browser window to summarise web pages, compare products or even analyse data from websites.
Business Post gathered that there is also an “agent mode” for people who pay for the premium version of the service. This feature lets ChatGPT perform online tasks, to make “improvements that make it faster and more useful by working with your browsing context.”
During the demo, OpenAI developers showed how ChatGPT used Atlas to go on the Instacart website and add items to the cart all by itself.
For now, the browser is available globally on Apple computers (macOS), but OpenAI says it will soon release versions for Windows, iPhones, and Android phones.
Experts say Atlas could become a serious challenge to Google Chrome, which currently controls about 71.9 per cent of the global browser market. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, saw its shares drop by 1.8 per cent after the announcement.
Google, which has majority of the online search market share, has also been trying to improve its browser using its Gemini AI model, which is now part of Chrome for US users.
Analysts believe OpenAI’s new browser might later start showing ads, which could make it compete directly with Google’s advertising business.
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