Now more than ever, companies across West Africa have to reconcile regulatory compliance with their AI plans.
In Nigeria, millions of dollars are being funnelled into new data centres and next-generation infrastructure to handle advanced computing workloads.
At the same time, leaders are calling for the country to achieve digital sovereignty, prioritising and building the infrastructure, talent and cloud sovereignty that will make it self-reliant.
AI is increasing the demand for cloud capacity, both locally and globally. But with that demand comes the need for enterprises to adhere to residency rules and ensure all their data, applications and operations remain within relevant borders.
To ensure this, enterprises need to understand what cloud sovereignty implies, and with the right approach, they can not only comply with regulations but also lay a solid foundation for their AI strategies and quickly start to scale and draw business value from the technology.
A model for cloud sovereignty
For many companies, cloud computing is the default for storing, managing and analysing their data and applications.
With that default comes the need for robust frameworks that ensure companies adhere to sovereignty obligations, especially as cloud environments, such as scalable enterprise-grade infrastructure, become critical for hosting AI workloads and applications.
Migrating to the cloud is a priority for companies, but it does involve ceding a degree of independence and operational control to hyperscalers and service providers. Additionally, companies may face risks related to data privacy and third-party access, all of which can immediately impact migration efforts or long-term innovation projects.
According to a recent Red Hat survey, sovereignty concerns are the biggest barrier to cloud adoption for large EMEA enterprises.
This creates the need for sovereign architectures, which enable organisations to maintain transparency over core IT services, including networking, automation and key management. Sovereign controls encompass data encryption, access and identity management (AIM), audit management, supply chain security, and workload and data residency protections.
All of these and other controls allow West African organisations to control who can access their data and systems, as well as make decisions regarding the physical and geographical locations of their infrastructure.
Balancing innovation with compliance
Digital and cloud sovereignty are important factors when it comes to companies’ AI plans and projects, especially as the technology becomes more integrated into core business functions.
According to Red Hat, companies across Europe, the Middle East and Africa plan to increase their AI investments by an average of 32% by 2026.
Innovation cannot come at the expense of compliance, nor should compliance be a barrier to innovation. Companies in Nigeria and West Africa need governed environments where development and operations teams can access the tools and resources they need for AI projects.
The solution for this is an open source approach, which guarantees transparency and openness and enables companies to innovate and build applications and solutions with confidence.
Using enterprise open source platforms, companies can control, manage and move their data and AI workloads across different clouds and environments based on sovereign and residency requirements.
This results in a high level of flexibility and operational resilience, which are core components of any AI strategy, especially as enterprises worldwide turn their attention to agentic AI and deploy agents that run on multiple models and feature higher degrees of computational complexity.
Agentic AI holds a lot of potential for the continent, with sectors such as healthcare, financial services, education and government services. And ensuring the sovereignty of an organisation’s digital infrastructure is the first step to building systems and agents that deliver real business value.
Choosing the right partners and platforms
When it comes to addressing digital sovereignty, West African enterprises need to prioritise partners and vendors who don’t just understand the regulations, but who can help them adhere to those regulations while modernising their technology at the same time.
When it comes to choosing a sovereign partner or provider, enterprises should prioritise those with national certifications, local data centre ownership and no vendor lock-in.
As for platforms, enterprises should prioritise those that offer them the flexibility of hybrid cloud and that provide them with the control, trust and resilience they need in a sovereign environment, as well as embrace AI to its full potential.
By taking that route, and with the help of trusted and industry-recognised vendors, West Africa can become an example for the continent in not only achieving digital sovereignty but also building an ecosystem that accelerates innovation.
