Africa can now rent computing power for $50 instead of spending more than $100,000 on infrastructure, and that changes everything.
Shoyinka Shodunke, chief information officer of MTN Nigeria, said this as he delivered the keynote on the digital economy forecast for 2026 at Tech Revolution Africa Conference 2.0 in Lagos, headlined by MTN.
Speaking under the theme “The Big Bold Step,” Shodunke stressed that the fourth industrial revolution is the first moment in history where Africa can compete on equal terms, but only if it moves fast.
“The inputs today are data, and where’s the factory? The factory sits in the cloud,” he said.
During the first industrial revolution, the continent was absent. In the second, it supplied raw materials. In the third, it became a consumer of finished technology. Each delay came at a cost.
“We got punished for the first. Got punished for the second time. We got punished for the third,” he said. “But in the fourth, if we fail to act, we get punished again.”
What makes this era different, he explained, is that scale no longer depends on capital. With cloud services, access to talent from anywhere and locally generated data, the limitations are lower. Startups no longer need massive data centres or years of runway before launching products.
“You can subscribe to cloud services today at $50,” he said. “You don’t have to invest over $100,000 on compute power for you to be able to power your industry.”
Shodunke explained that the actual threat is not lack of technology but fear, fear of disrupting existing business models, revenue streams and comfortable ways of working. He warned that organisations clinging to legacy systems risk repeating Africa’s old mistakes.
“You cannot live with a legacy mindset, a fear of disruption, or with the comfort of mediocrity,” Shodunke further stated at the Tech Revolution Africa Conference 2.0. “Whatever is being built has to be built with a scale in mind, not mediocre.”
Using MTN as a case study, he described how the telecoms giant has had to intentionally disrupt itself, moving beyond voice and data into cloud services, fintech and intelligent platforms layered on top of its network infrastructure.
“History punished everyone who hesitated,” he warned. “So don’t really wait for the perfect time to come in, only take that big bold step.”
In closing, he stressed that the race has already started. Africa is not arriving late anymore, but hesitation could still leave it watching others disrupt.
“Revolution,” Shodunke said, “it punishes hesitations.”
