“The ADC will be unlike any other existing investment on the continent. It will help us better listen to our customers, develop locally and scale for global impact,” says Phil Spencer, executive sponsor of the ADC and executive vice president at Microsoft.
“Beyond that, it’s an opportunity to engage more with local partners, academia, governments and developers – driving impact and innovation in sectors important to Africa.”
For the ADC, Microsoft is seeking engineering talent in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and mixed reality. With the initial team of engineers already starting work, the ADC intends to recruit 100 full-time engineers by the end of 2019 – expanding to 500 across the two sites by 2023. Applications are open on the ADC website.
To support the development of these required skills, Microsoft is also partnering with local universities to create a modern intelligent edge and cloud curriculum, unique to Africa. Graduates from top Nigerian engineering universities will have access to the ADC to build relevant and meaningful careers in data science, AI, mixed reality, application development and more.
The joint investment in ADC infrastructure and employment of qualified local engineers is expected to total $100 million over the first five years of operation.
“Microsoft recently opened its first hyper-scale datacentres in Africa, and this next milestone is particularly significant for Nigeria,” says Akin Banuso, country manager for Microsoft Nigeria.
“The reason we selected Nigeria as one of the first ADC sites is to better understand a continent that is rapidly adopting cloud technology and innovation at the intelligent edge. We view Nigeria as a leading regional digital innovation hub, and the ADC aims to invest in and accelerate the work being done here.”
Microsoft has operated on the continent for more than 25 years, building partnerships to bridge the gaps in infrastructure, connectivity and capability to accelerate innovation. Microsoft 4Afrika, Microsoft's business and market development engine on the continent, is preparing the market to embrace cloud technology. The programme has upskilled more than 1.6 million Africans and brought more than 700,000 small and medium-sized businesses online and connected schools, universities and healthcare clinics to the internet for the first time.
“Microsoft is already empowering many Nigerian innovations at the edge, with partners like Interswitch and fintech start-up Flutterwave,” continues Banuso. “Energyrathon Consulting in Nigeria is also a recent AI for Earth grant recipient, which is developing AI-enabled systems to track pollution spread patterns in underground water aquifers and protect freshwater and marine ecosystems. We’re excited to drive more innovations like this from the ADC.”
“We are building an ecosystem driven by data and technology that provides millions of businesses and individuals with intuitive transaction solutions and payment experiences,” says Mitchell Elegbe, founder and group CEO of Interswitch. “Microsoft is a partner whose vision aligns with ours as we scale payment innovation across Africa. Both organisations provide infrastructure and technology that makes life easier for our customers, and we are using a variety of cutting-edge Microsoft solutions, not only to power our enterprise software stack, but also in application with specific use cases like blockchain-based remittances. We are both helping solve some of Africa's most challenging financial and logistic problems."
Microsoft Cognition and Microsoft Windows teams will kick-start the ADC efforts, focusing on AI-enabled cloud services, mixed reality experiences and rich applications that power the intelligent edge without disruption.
