Artificial intelligence is creating a new race for digital infrastructure, but Schneider Electric, an energy management and industrial automation company, believes Africa is preparing for it with the wrong question.
Most governments are focused on generating more electricity. Ifeanyi Odoh, Schneider Electric’s East Africa president, says that’s no longer enough. The bigger challenge is rebuilding electricity grids designed for the last century to support AI data centres, cloud computing, electric vehicles and distributed renewable energy.
“The traditional grid as we know it is already becoming obsolete,” Odoh told TechCabal in an interview. “We need grids that are digitally enabled from the start because the way electricity is generated and consumed has fundamentally changed.”
His argument comes as Africa tries to position itself for the AI economy despite having just 360 megawatts of live data centre capacity across 217 facilities in 33 countries—less than 1% of global capacity. Every new AI model, hyperscale data centre and cloud region will demand exponentially more electricity than the infrastructure many African countries were built to deliver.
For Schneider Electric, that makes the electricity grid the next competitive battleground.
Rather than simply supplying electrical equipment, the company wants to become the operating system behind Africa’s AI infrastructure. Schneider says it already provides power infrastructure for more than 38% of Africa’s installed data centre capacity and about half of East Africa’s, where more than 80% of facilities use some combination of its power management, automation and secure power systems.
Its pitch is straightforward: countries that modernise their grids first will attract the next wave of AI investment.
AI changes the economics of electricity
The electricity demands of AI bear little resemblance to traditional enterprise computing.
A conventional server rack typically consumes between 5 kilowatts (kW) and 15kW. AI racks already draw 40kW to 120kW, with next-generation systems approaching 200kW per cabinet. Instead of occasional computing peaks, AI infrastructure runs continuously, requiring uninterrupted electricity and sophisticated cooling around the clock.
That changes not only how much electricity is needed, but also where it’s needed.
Data centres are increasingly built close to cities rather than isolated industrial parks. Most of the 18 data centres in Lagos, Nigeria, are located within residential and commercial areas. Electric vehicles add another layer of decentralised demand as charging shifts from petrol stations to homes, offices and shopping centres.
“Massive infrastructure investments like data centres are now much closer to residential and commercial developments,” Odoh said. “That changes completely how power needs to be delivered.”
Three countries, three versions of Africa’s AI future
The continent’s biggest data centre markets already illustrate how power infrastructure is shaping investment decisions.
South Africa has become the obvious destination for hyperscale cloud providers following Eskom’s recovery from years of load shedding. More than 400 consecutive days without nationwide rolling blackouts as of June 2026, combined with private renewable generation and power-wheeling regulations, have restored investor confidence. In March 2025, Microsoft announced a massive R5.4 billion ($300 million) infrastructure expansion in the South African cloud region.
Kenya has chosen a different path. More than 70% of its electricity comes from renewable sources, particularly geothermal energy, making it attractive to companies under pressure to lower emissions. Instead of relying entirely on the national grid, developers are increasingly locating AI data centres directly beside geothermal plants. Microsoft’s planned $1 billion AI campus with G42 reflects that strategy.
Nigeria offers the continent’s largest digital market but its weakest electricity system. Despite having 13.6 GW of installed generation capacity, only about 4.3 GW is consistently available, forcing data centres to rely on captive gas plants, batteries, and other off-grid systems. Schneider believes Nigeria’s abundant gas reserves could support a “gas-to-compute” model, in which dedicated power infrastructure is integrated into the data centre itself.
Each market is solving the same AI problem differently, but all begin with electricity.
Africa’s advantage is that it isn’t locked into the past
Odoh sees Africa’s biggest weakness as a strategic advantage.
Much of Africa’s electricity infrastructure is old and in need of major upgrades, but that also allows many countries to build smarter, digitally managed grids from the ground up—ones designed to integrate renewable energy, battery storage, and the high electricity demands of AI.
“Africa has a significant opportunity to rethink how it builds energy infrastructure,” he said.
Schneider argues that future grids will increasingly resemble software platforms. Instead of pushing electricity in one direction—from power station to consumer—they will constantly balance solar farms, batteries, gas plants, rooftop generation and AI facilities in real time.
“We need everything,” Odoh said. “The real question is how to integrate all these different energy sources into one intelligent grid.”
That thinking explains Schneider Electric’s growing role in African data centres.
The company now supplies everything from medium-voltage equipment and power distribution to AI liquid-cooling systems that remove heat directly from processors, allowing much denser computing than conventional cooling systems, according to Odoh.
Schneider claims it is increasingly assembling this equipment locally.
“We’re already able to design these systems and assemble them locally on the continent,” Odoh said. “The whole digital economy can only be made possible if we address the underlying electrification need. Energy is the enabler for everything else.”
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