By Dipo Olowookere

In one year, the customer base of the mobile money business of Airtel Africa Plc, Airtel Money, increased by 17.3 per cent to 44.6 million.

This information was revealed by the company in its 2025 Sustainability Report, with 44.2 per cent of Airtel Money customers accounting for women, 6.2 per cent higher than the figure a year earlier, as the Airtel Money agents in its distribution network soared by 23.4 per cent to 1.7 million.

Airtel Africa also disclosed that in the period under review, its data customers went up by 14.1 per cent to 73.4 million as data customers as it empowers individuals and communities, particularly women, to fully participate in the digital economy through inclusive digital services and affordable financial products.

It was also revealed that to minimise the impact of its operations on the environment, 500 off-grid sites were converted to on-grid power, reducing reliance on diesel generators, with 93 per cent of total waste recycled.

The company promised to continue to cut down the impact of its operations on the environment through investment in renewable energy solutions and responsible waste management.

In the area of education, Airtel Africa said 2,176 schools connected to the internet free of charge versus 1,201 schools a year earlier.

By providing free connectivity and online resources to schools, Airtel Africa is helping young people reach their full potential. A growing agent network also supports employment and entrepreneurship opportunities across its footprint.

The telco stated that it recorded 81.2 per cent population coverage across 14 markets, with 36,159 4G infrastructure sites, including more than 15,300 in rural areas. It also sustained its investment of $670 million in network expansion and modernisation to boost speed, coverage and capacity.

“This year’s achievements, from connecting 2,176 schools through the UNICEF partnership to reaching 44.6 million Airtel Money customers with near-gender parity, prove that the power of technology is a catalyst for gender balance.

“At Airtel Africa, we believe to not only expanding networks but we’re also building bridges to education, financial security and sustainable growth for Africa’s next generation,” the chief executive of Airtel Africa, Mr Sunil Taldar, said.

By Aduragbemi Omiyale

Stakeholders in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) space in Nigeria will have the opportunity to meet others from across the world at an event planned for Thursday, June 226, 2025.

The event, organised by Vertiv, will showcase latest AI-ready infrastructure solutions, including key innovations in power and cooling.

The world leader in critical digital infrastructure is bringing company is bringing its highly anticipated AI Solutions Innovation Roadshow to Lagos as part of a global series of events designed to educate and equip customers and consultants with essential expertise for deploying high-performance computing (HPC) and AI infrastructure.

Vertiv experts will introduce the key infrastructure imperatives to enable AI, sharing insights on latest challenges and opportunities and providing participants with a deep understanding of the latest innovations supporting HPC infrastructure, as well as the impact on data centre power and cooling systems.

The Vertiv AI Solutions Innovation Roadshow in Lagos will explore opportunities in Africa’s AI data centre landscape and discuss the latest power and cooling innovations for the AI era.

It will examine how West African enterprises are preparing for AI’s infrastructure demands, addressing necessary policy shifts and strategies to future-proof digital infrastructure across industries.

This roadshow highlights key requirements for implementing AI-compatible infrastructure and services to maintain operational excellence.

Vertiv speakers for the Lagos event include Piorko; as well as Jon Abbott, technologies director, colocation and hyperscale for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA); Luther Ogbaji, sales engineer, high density and liquid cooling specialist; Sofiat Ojurongbe, regional account manager, and Okechi Osuagwu, key account sales manager.

The event will also comprise a panel discussion on ‘Building for Tomorrow: Preparing West Africa’s Infrastructure for AI at Scale’, which will feature panelists including Wole Abu, managing director for West Africa, at Equinix, and Gerald Madondo, country director at Turner & Townsend.

“This event series marks our dedication to actively support the data centre and AI market across Africa. With the incremental influence of AI and HPC on our industry, we understand the critical need to support our customers and partners with insights and technology that drive their success,” the Managing Director of Africa at Vertiv, Wojtek Piorko, stated.

A global technology company, Zoho, has launched Zia Hubs, a solution within Zoho WorkDrive that brings new forms of unstructured business data into the company’s broad portfolio of applications and AI services.

Using Zia Hubs, organisations can now present any type of business content to Zoho’s powerful capabilities and services—including agentic AI, comprehensive analysis, and accurate, unified search—regardless of file format or structure.

Zia Hubs brings content intelligence to the company’s unified content management and collaboration platform.

Designed with a high level of user control over what content AI is allowed to access, Zia Hubs enables users to organise project or task-specific content into dedicated hubs within WorkDrive.

Each hub serves as a focused space where Zia, Zoho’s flagship AI, can understand and act on the content stored within. This includes a wide range of formats such as PDFs, documents, videos, and audio files.

The platform automatically organises uploaded content by grouping related information—such as section headings, supporting text, and visuals—to preserve context. For video and audio files, Zia generates transcripts and links key moments to relevant topics, making it easier to pinpoint exactly where something was said.

With Zia Hubs, users can surface the most relevant answers when asked a question, even across different content formats. Each response includes clear citations that link back to the original content, whether it is a document, spreadsheet, image, or a specific moment in an audio or video file.

Organisations can also create custom workflows with Zoho Flow, automating document storage processes for particular projects or specific teams. This ensures that Zia always has access to the latest necessary documents automatically.

Furthermore, content from third-party software—such as Docusign PDFs, RingCentral call logs, Zoom video files—are all readable by Zia, and can be automatically placed into a hub by building a workflow with Zoho Flow.

Commenting on this, the Country Head of Zoho Nigeria, Mr Kehinde Ogundare, said, “According to IDC, 80 per cent of business data is unstructured.

“Most unstructured data is text-based, meaning pertinent information lives within email conversations, social media posts, word processor documents, or audio and video transcripts.

“With Zia Hubs built into the full product suite, Zoho can provide customers with a deeper integration than any comparable software platform and nearly limitless potential uses for their data.”