Nigeria Proposes Shared AI Computing With Rwanda, Senegal And Kenya At Build 2026 Conference

According to a report by ThisDay on Thursday, October 22, 2026, the Federal Government has called for African countries to pool their artificial intelligence (AI) computing capacity, saying no single country can easily fund the infrastructure needed to run large AI models.

Communications Minister Bosun Tijani was represented at the Build 2026 Conference in Abuja by Dr Olubunmi Ajala, National Director of the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. The two-day event was convened by the Nigeria AI Collective, which is funded by Luminate, the AI Collaborative, the Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation.

Business Post reported that the proposal involves Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Kenya. ThisDay reported that Nigeria’s graphics processing units (GPUs) could be connected to the GPU funded by the Gates Foundation in Rwanda, and to similar capacity in Senegal and Kenya. This would let researchers build large language models that no single country could run alone.

Tijani listed electricity, internet connectivity, cloud infrastructure and advanced computer chips as the main obstacles. ThisDay reported that Nigeria is working on a proposed regional data park with Togo to use available electricity capacity. Ajala said about 20 million Nigerians remain unconnected, and that securing advanced AI chips is difficult because the technology changes every few months.

Luminate CEO Melanie Hui warned that Nigeria’s reliance on foreign cloud infrastructure costs the country about $850 million a year, according to research her organisation commissioned.

Dr Olubayo Adekanbi, CEO of Data Science Nigeria, urged Nigerians to learn AI skills and proposed a phone-based system so people without internet access can check whether claims are true, ThisDay reported.

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