Subsea Cables, AI Infrastructure, and Africa's Connectivity Gap
Interpreting India
The episode explores the critical intersection of subsea cable infrastructure and AI development in Africa. Dr. Jane Munga discusses how mas
Key takeaways
- Less than 40% of Africans currently use the internet due to high costs and infrastructure gaps.
- The 2024 cable cut incident highlighted extreme vulnerability, affecting ten African countries simultaneously.
Main topics
- Subsea Cable Fragility
- AI Infrastructure in Africa
Notable quotes
Technology is first to connect people and secondly to connect them for what? So that they can beneficially integrate themselves in the digital economy.
Conclusion
True digital transformation in Africa requires moving beyond mere infr
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:07) Hello and welcome to a new episode of Interpreting India. From geopolitical complexities to economic uncertainties, India faces critical challenges in its quest for a more prominent role on the world stage. This season, we at Carnegie India continue to bring voices from India and around the world to examine the role of technology, the economy, and international security in shaping India's future. I am Charu Keshie, and in today's episode, we'll be discussing subsea cables yet again. In the last conversation in this series, we explored the strategic and economic significance of cables in the Indian Ocean region, the workings of the cable consortiums, and then we dived into India's play in the subsea cables network. Today, we shift our attention to Africa. Africa is having a moment in the global infrastructure story, and it's happening as much as on land as it is happening under the sea. Over the past two years, the continent has become one of the most active AI infrastructure markets in the world. We have Nigeria that's ready to host Africa's first hyperscale ready AI data center this year. Zambia has an AI data center partnership with Huawei. Google is coming up with an AI lab in Ghana. So Africa's data center market is likely to reach a triple of its 2024 value in 2030, according to some estimates. But underpinning all of this surge in AI investments and the benefits that that it will bring to the continent is a very robust subsea cable network. And even cables are arriving at a pace that Africa has never seen before. The continent now has something like 77 submarine cables, with its largest being the 2Africa, which is now live. And that lands at 46 landing stations across 33 countries. But a few issues arise when we look at the infrastructure, AI infrastructure in Africa. First, landing a cable does not translate to being connected permanently. This network is very fragile. And unfortunately, the fragility becomes clear only when it breaks. The second is the question of financing and ownership of these cables, which is increasingly becoming a concern with many states. So that's the landscape we're stepping into today. There's capital inflow in the AI infrastructure market in Africa. Cables are multiplying. AI applications are being built on top of it. But where does African interest sit within this build-out? And is there like a shared African position on how this infrastructure should be secured and governed? And does this surge of investments actually close Africa's connectivity gap are some of the issues that we're going to explore in today's podcast. Joining us today to discuss this topic is Dr. Jane Munga from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Jane is a fellow with the Africa Programme where her work looks at how African countries harness digital technologies to advance inclusive and sustainable growth. Previously, she has also worked with the Kenyan government as an advisor and economic expert, shaping national and regional digital policies. Jane is also a member of the ITU's international advisory body on subsea cables. Jane, we're thrilled to have you. Welcome to Interpreting India. Speaker 2 (3:19) Thank you so much, Rakesh. It's a pleasure to be on here. Speaker 1 (3:22) Thank you. We'll drive straight into the conversation. I'm going to pick a thread that you mentioned in another podcast. which is you've spoken on how it matters significantly what the overall framing is when approaching the issue of securing the infrastructure and that differs from continent to continent. Could you help us unpack what that framing is for Africa? Speaker 2 (3:48) Sure. And thank you again, Tarakeshi. I think just being having this conversation and understanding how undersea cables are driving Africa's digital narratives is, I think, a very critical conversation. So thank you for what you've been doing and even for bringing Africa into that fold. So framing is extremely important. I'm glad you started with that because even in your framing questions, I liked how you said you brought the part, what does all this mean for Africa? And I think that's where we have to start. And that's where the framing comes from. First and foremost, when we talk about undersea cables and why we continue to see heavy investments in them is the issue that Africa is one of the, actually is the least connected continent. We have the ITU now estimates. Every year it releases its facts and figures. The last facts and figures by the ITU showed about less than 40 % are people using the internet. And this is not always because the connectivity is not there, but also it's very expensive. Connecting to the internet tends to be expensive. But the issue is more and more Africans need to connect to the internet. So one way of doing that is ensuring the first mile is how the internet arrives into the continent, and that is through the undersea cables or by satellite. Now we're seeing more and more satellite technologies. is laid bare. Even our satellite catches up because the capacity of, we know the capacity of other sea cables is very high. So there's an important, especially for the AI industry. So that is the first thing that there's a need to ensure that Africa is connecting its citizens. And why then is it connecting its citizens? And you've already said it, we are now in the AI era, we are now in the digital era. We are talking about digital development, digital transformation. We are seeing many, many documents. policy documents, to be precise, that are talking about how can technology fast-track socioeconomic development. From the Africa Union, we saw the digital strategy by the African Union itself. We saw the AI strategy by the Africa Union. And all of these are showing how can technologies be the ones that help Africa move beyond some of its issues, especially poverty with the... bringing applications for health, agriculture, and so forth. So this is the need that is driving this, and not just at the continental level, but at the national level. Our work that we've been doing at the Africa program is we're also tracking the digital policies that are being developed across the continent. We've been tracking the AI ones and mostly the ones in the digital economy. And there's a persistent story that is coming out of all these documents. Technology is first to connect people and secondly to connect them for what? So that they can beneficially integrate themselves in the digital economy. So those are the key things that we are seeing the framing. The second thing is then, of course, these are the framings that come from the geopolitical world. There's this issue of security. There's an issue of which way, who is investing with whom. For Africa, what we have seen mostly is Africa is investing with partners, even for India. I think when we were at the India AI Summit earlier this year, it was the show of how the global South is now rallying around some of its common issues, the language issues. How do you connect people? So some of these nuances are now beginning also to surface in a connectivity, in restructuring, in imperative. Because as you know, Charukeshi, infrastructure is one thing, but then how do you translate that? Does it actually become something that becomes value of people? So that's the framing that we see around the infrastructure. And it's interesting that this is not commonly something that we are really seeing among all the countries in the African continent. Speaker 1 (7:39) Yeah, that's very interesting. And I'm glad that you mentioned the policy framework that's coming out of Africa. So the digital roadmap in the Africa, the AI strategy. I want to ask if, so a lot of... investment is coming into Africa. There are regional hubs that are being developed, AI hubs in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya. Gradually Ghana and DRC also are starting to emerge as centers. And then there are subsea cable investments. So a lot of hyperscaler investment is coming in. You have cables like Umoja, you have cables like Equinor, you have UAfrica. Do you think that all of these investments are commensurate with the digital transformation ambition that is spelled out in in sort of policy documents that come out of Africa. Is that commensurate or do you think that there's a gap somewhere there? Speaker 2 (8:29) I think the ambition and what the investments are saying, I think there's a big gap. And what I say that is because with the investments, we are yet to see the jump in one, for example, an indicator like connectivity. It would be good to understand why are we still persistently at these low levels. Secondly, are we seeing the translation of that into economic activity? So, for example, let's go to the economic hubs that you just mentioned. There's a lot of innovation that is coming forth from these innovation hubs. But we are seeing a lot of very, I would call them small scale, or yet we have not seen the big leapfrogging to an innovation that is widespread across the continent, whereby we have an e-farm or e-agriculture or e-tech innovation. one that is big becomes a group name you know we have seen a lot of innovation that came out of silicon valley from india but we had to see large scale um you know applications or innovations we do have some success stories let me know it also did so much in the continent especially because i come from kenya and we have uh pesa we have mobile money um and we have some other ones but we are yet even for uh product like Mpesa, it has not yet made the continental push. It is in East Africa and it's now a bit in the South African region, so a bit of the lower central and southern, but we are yet to see it take more of a continental. So some of the things that we are beginning to ask ourselves, yes, we are seeing these investments, we are seeing this investment in the hubs, we are seeing this investment in the skills. But how can we start translating those? That's why I say for me, there's a gap. And I think the gap then becomes a broader aspect of not just the infrastructure investments. Speaker 1 (10:26) Infrastructure is Speaker 2 (10:27) one way, but you also have to diversify that. Speaker 1 (10:30) Right, right. So what I'm getting is that there's a lot of development in the application layer, but the scaling and the diffusion of that will depend on how well the infrastructure is and how well the infrastructure is around across the continent. And I think that will become clearer. We'll have a clearer sense of how the infrastructure is across the continent if we have some sort of a study going on. And we need a lot of data for that. Do you, in your sort of reading, have come across some sort of an evidence that shows what the existing connectivity has done in Africa and where exactly are the gaps when it comes to, well, also... diffusing AI applications,