MTN Group is moving deeper into physical AI infrastructure, partnering with Dubai-based investor Tarek Al Ashram to build 150 megawatts of AI-ready data center capacity across Nigeria and South Africa in the venture’s first phase. The partnership runs through a newly formed joint entity, Africa Data Hub Holding Ltd., which surfaced publicly through a Bloomberg report before MTN confirmed it directly in its own half-year results for the six months to June 30, disclosing that MTN Digital Infrastructure had entered the strategic partnership after the reporting period closed.
The structure of the deal matters as much as its size. MTN will hold a minority stake in Africa Data Hub Holding rather than controlling it outright, with Bayobab, MTN’s pan-African fibre and wholesale connectivity business, participating as a shareholder and contributing open-access connectivity and market support across its existing network. Neither the total investment value nor the exact ownership split has been disclosed, though industry estimates put the likely cost of building out 150MW of AI-specific data center capacity somewhere between $3 billion and $6 billion, depending on the technology, power infrastructure, location, and scale ultimately involved.
Al Ashram brings a genuinely credible track record to the partnership rather than untested ambition. He founded Gulf Data Hub in 2011 and built it into the largest colocation service provider in the Middle East and North Africa region, currently running 40MW of operational data centers with a further 90MW under construction. Last year, New York investment firm KKR backed Gulf Data Hub with a plan supporting more than $5 billion in expansion tied to rising hyperscale, AI, and cloud demand across the Gulf. That’s the exact playbook Al Ashram is now betting can transfer to African markets, and MTN CEO Ralph Mupita has been direct about why the telecom group chose a partner rather than building this capability alone: MTN’s approach to its AI business is to work with third parties who’ve already built data centers elsewhere, in this case a partner with real operating experience in the UAE, and to take a phased approach rather than committing to a single massive build all at once. “We will build out as demand requires,” Mupita said, describing the initial 150 megawatts as phase one rather than the finished plan.
Al Ashram has framed the opportunity in similar terms, describing Africa as presenting a compellingly similar setup to what the Middle East experienced in recent years, driven by strong underlying demand, rapidly expanding digital economies, and a growing need for resilient, scalable infrastructure that the continent doesn’t yet have enough of.
That infrastructure gap is real and specific. Africa already hosts more than 210 data centers storing cloud information, but the large majority of that existing capacity wasn’t built for AI workloads, which demand far more electricity and considerably more specialised cooling and power infrastructure than conventional data storage ever required. Securing reliable power, fibre connectivity, and suitable land is turning out to be just as important to this kind of build as securing the billions of dollars in capital behind it, and MTN says it has already begun preparing on that front specifically, acquiring land and negotiating power agreements ahead of construction.
The timing lines up with a broader shift already underway inside MTN’s business. The company’s most recent half-year results showed Nigeria overtaking South Africa as MTN’s biggest profit engine, contributing to $7.18 billion in group revenue for the first half of 2026 even as South Africa’s operations struggled. Diversifying beyond core telecom revenue and into digital infrastructure that can capture a share of Africa’s accelerating AI and cloud demand fits squarely into MTN’s stated strategy for where its next growth is meant to come from, and a joint venture that lets the company build that capacity without shouldering the entire capital burden or technical risk alone is a considerably lower-risk way to make that bet than going it alone.
Whether Africa Data Hub Holding actually delivers 150 working megawatts on anything close to a reasonable timeline remains to be seen, since MTN hasn’t committed to a public construction schedule and the financing details are still under wraps. But pairing MTN’s continental network reach and market access with a partner who has genuinely built and operated large-scale data centers before, rather than backing an unproven venture from scratch, gives this particular AI infrastructure bet a considerably more credible starting point than most of the announcements currently circulating in this space.
