Bayobab and Seekr partner to roll out AI-as-a-service across Africa

Johannesburg/Reston, October 16, 2025- MTN Digital Infrastructure, trading as Bayobab, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with U.S.-based AI firm Seekr Technologies to bring the SeekrFlow AI-as-a-Service (AIaaS) platform to Bayobab’s data-centre and connectivity network across Africa.

Under the deal, Bayobab will pilot and commercialise Seekr’s cloud-native AI tools across its footprint, using the platform to accelerate AI adoption in the public sector (digital governance, citizen engagement, and public safety) and enterprise verticals such as financial services, logistics, and energy. The agreement is pitched as a quick way for African organisations to deploy ready-made AI models without building heavy data-science stacks in-house.

“Our partnership with Seekr represents an important step in exploring the transformative potential of AI to accelerate Africa’s digital evolution,” Mazen Mroué, CEO of MTN Digital Infrastructure, said in the announcement. “We see tremendous opportunity in embedding intelligent technologies across our digital infrastructure and services.”

Seekr said its SeekrFlow stack will let Bayobab customers quickly deploy and scale AI models while keeping data closer to users, an important consideration for latency-sensitive applications and data-governance rules across African markets.

Rob Clark, president of Seekr, said the tie-up would focus on delivering “accurate, trustworthy AI outputs” for both government and business clients.

Independent trade outlets and regional tech press flagged the move as timely, noting industry estimates that AI could add up to USD 1.5 trillion to Africa’s economy by 2030, a figure Bayobab and Seekr cite as part of the partnership rationale. The partnership follows Bayobab’s broader push to expand its data-centre footprint and AI-ready services across key African markets.

The companies described the arrangement as an MoU and a strategic partnership; next steps, such as commercial rollouts, pricing, data residency guarantees, and sector-specific pilots, were not yet published and will likely follow formal contracts and pilot announcements. The deal’s focus on “keeping data closer to users” suggests Bayobab will host many workloads inside its own data-centres, a model that could help with latency and local regulation but will require further detail on compliance and data governance.