The third edition of Hyperscalers Convergence Africa (HCA) 2026 closed with a decisive call to action: Africa must accelerate its digital infrastructure buildout through coordinated, cross-border systems that unlock the continent’s economic potential.

Held under the theme: ‘Africa’s Great Digital Buildout’, the gathering brought together policymakers, regulators, investors, development finance institutions, technology companies, infrastructure operators and enterprise leaders from across Africa and beyond.

Over five panel sessions and two keynote addresses, participants examined how data centres, cloud platforms, fibre networks, power systems and artificial intelligence can drive Africa’s digital transformation. Speakers included senior representatives from the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat, Africa Finance Corporation, AUDA-NEPAD, Equinix, GSMA, Rack Centre, the World Bank, Microsoft, IXAfrica Data Centres, Bayobab/MTN, Open Access Data Centres and others.

A central conclusion of the conference was clear: Africa must move beyond isolated infrastructure projects toward interconnected, cross-border digital systems. While new data centres, subsea cables and fibre deployments are expanding capacity, their impact will remain limited without reliable power, harmonised regulation, affordable connectivity and stronger enterprise demand.

The conference identified seven priorities for action. They include incentivising Internet service providers to peer across borders, lowering costs and complexity and aligning regulatory processes, fiscal models, technical standards and tariffs to make cross-border investment predictable.
 
Others are funding early-stage project preparation to ensure viable infrastructure reaches investment readiness, mobilising African institutional capital by connecting pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds and DFIs with developers and extending subsea capacity inland through terrestrial fibre.      

Major projects highlighted included Nigeria’s proposed 90,000-kilometre fibre backbone under the BRIDGE initiative, cross-border peering incentives and the development of an Oracle cloud region in Nigeria.

HCA will consolidate these findings into the Africa Digital Infrastructure Delivery Agenda 2026, covering regulation, capital, power, connectivity, data centres, cloud, AI, cybersecurity and regional integration.

HCA 2026 also released an inclusion report recognising 100 women driving innovation across telecommunications, cloud, data centres, policy, finance and technology. Honourees included leaders from Google, Safaricom, Ethio Telecom, Microsoft, GSMA, Telecom Egypt, N+ONE Datacenters, Orange Botswana, MTN South Africa, Telecel Ghana, CAMTEL, Bayobab Nigeria, Meta, Smart Africa, Africa Finance Corporation and national regulatory bodies.

In his keynote, Executive Director of Africa Hyperscalers, Temitope Osunrinde, emphasised: “Africa’s digital future depends on the infrastructure choices we make today. Delivering reliable power, resilient connectivity, secure data centres and affordable computing will require governments, investors and industry to work together. Bilateral agreements are valuable, but multilateral alignment on policy, regulation and investment is essential to build interconnected infrastructure at the scale Africa requires.”