Agenda

Africa has laid strong foundations in connectivity and investment. How can the ecosystem turn that momentum into large-scale, sustainable delivery?

Africa’s growth depends on how governments and industry collaborate to scale connectivity, compute, energy and digital services. Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are emerging as a critical mechanism to align national goals with private-sector innovation, unlock capital, and harmonise policy across borders.

Start your day with a morning of inspiration at our dedicated Talent in Tech forum. This empowering event will feature leading female voices in the industry sharing their stories and experiences, overcoming challenges and driving dynamic change in an otherwise static sector.  

The regulatory landscape remains one of the most decisive factors shaping Africa’s digital infrastructure growth. Fragmented licensing, unclear rights‑of‑way processes, inconsistent site permitting, and grid‑related approvals continue to slow the rollout of towers, fibre routes, and data centres. These barriers inflate deployment costs, hinder co‑location and open‑access models, and create uncertainty for investors seeking scalable, multi‑sector infrastructure strategies.

For towercos, fibre operators, hyperscale and edge providers, and energy partners, predictable regulation is essential to enabling shared‑infrastructure buildout, long‑term investment, and cross‑sector coordination.

Ensuring people, business and governments can use, afford, and benefit from the networks and digital infrastructure that has been built.

How policy and regulation shape where networks are built and how investment flows.

Open access has long underpinned Africa’s connectivity growth, enabling affordable and efficient use of shared digital infrastructure. Today, the model is being reconsidered as operators consolidate assets, operating costs, especially energy, continue to rise, regulatory scrutiny increases, and cross‑sector ecosystems spanning fibre, power, data centres and edge become more complex.

This session explores whether open access can still deliver on its original promise. We’ll examine how shifting industry structures, regulatory and commercial pressures, and wider economic challenges are reshaping multi‑tenant approaches and the future of shared infrastructure across the continent.

Understanding the pace and shape of growth across different regions.

This roundtable unites digital infrastructure and energy leaders to tackle rising power costs, grid reliability, and deployment delays. Discover strategic insights on managing power, outsourcing, and building successful energy partnerships.

Efficiency and cooling strategies are now central to how data centres are designed, operated and scaled.

• Why data centre growth clusters in specific markets

• How fibre, latency and proximity to users influence location decisions

• Lessons from South Africa, Kenya and West Africa

• How emerging hubs are positioning themselves for growth

Connectivity, cloud and data centres only scale as far as reliable power allows.

• How do DCOs and network operators reduce PUE and energy waste

• Intelligent monitoring: using software automation and DCIM to optimise performance

• Integrating grid, diesel and storage for resilient hybrid power models

• Real-time visibility using predictive maintenance, load balancing and cost optimisation

• Understanding of the key barriers to scaling data centre capacity across Africa
• Insight into how operators are managing power, costs and reliability
• Perspectives on which markets are best positioned for future growth
• Alignment on the role of power, financing, connectivity and partnerships in enabling expansion

• Embedded generation for DCs and towers

• Grid liberalisation and private offtake models

• What works across different African markets

• How regulation affects investment decisions

Expected discussion outcomes:

• View of how financing expectations differ between early-stage and mature markets

• Understanding of what makes a project bankable at different stages of development

• Better alignment between developers & capital providers on timelines and structures

• Why grid expansion alone won’t meet digital demand

• The role of anchor digital infrastructure customers

• Renewables, gas and hybrid models supporting DC growth

• Building local skills and supply chains

The DIF Catapult Accelerator is a platform for infrastructure project developers from across the African continent. 

The objective of this program is to create the basis for a better project development outcome on the Continent - reducing timelines and uncertainty to financial close, and increasing scale and improving the risk-reward balance between public and private sector. 

Expected discussion outcomes: 

• Shared understanding of which cooling & efficiency approaches are being used successfully in different African climates 

• Clarity on the trade-offs operators are making between CapEx, OpEx, and long-term efficiency 

• Practical insight into when retrofitting existing facilities makes sense vs new build 

• Better alignment between operators, investors and vendors on what ‘efficient’ means in live projects 

East Africa has emerged as one of Africa's most dynamic digital infrastructure markets, driven by expanding fibre networks, growing data centre investment, mobile innovation and cross-border connectivity initiatives. As digital adoption accelerates across the region, stakeholders must address persistent challenges around affordability, power, investment readiness and regional integration to unlock the next phase of growth. 

This interactive workshop will bring together operators, investors, infrastructure providers, regulators and policymakers to explore how East Africa can build a more connected, resilient and inclusive digital economy. 

Africa’s shift from connectivity expansion to AI-ready infrastructure delivery. The keynote will explain why future infrastructure leaders must understand capacity, compute, power resilience, capital formation, regulation and customer demand as one integrated delivery system.