On 12 November 2026, a disruption to Microsoft's global services affected businesses, financial institutions and public agencies across multiple countries. Outlook, Teams and other Microsoft 365 services experienced significant interruptions, leaving organisations struggling to communicate and coordinate their activities.

In South Africa, the Revenue Service issued a public advisory about the disruption. Elsewhere, financial institutions activated alternative communication arrangements as services became unreliable. For many organisations, the incident was an uncomfortable reminder of how much of their daily operations depends on infrastructure controlled by a handful of global technology companies.

In an excellent analysis, Microsoft's Outage Exposes the Risk Nobody Priced, Mutisunge Zulu examines the concentration risks embedded in our reliance on a single technology provider. His argument raises a question that I believe deserves particular attention from Africa's investment community.

How did we become so dependent on technologies that we neither build, own nor meaningfully control?

And perhaps more importantly, what are we prepared to invest to change that?

We have digitised our economies without owning the digital foundations

Over the past two decades, Africa has made remarkable progress in adopting digital technologies. Mobile connectivity has transformed communication, financial technology has broadened access to payments and banking services, and governments and businesses have increasingly moved their operations onto digital platforms.

We should celebrate this progress. African entrepreneurs have built globally recognised technology businesses, particularly in financial services, and demonstrated that innovation developed on the continent can compete internationally.

Yet beneath these achievements lies a structural weakness.

Much of the infrastructure supporting our digital economies, from cloud computing and enterprise productivity software to artificial intelligence platforms and cybersecurity systems, remains concentrated in technology companies headquartered elsewhere.

We purchase licences, subscribe to services, consume computing capacity and generate enormous volumes of data. But we capture a comparatively small share of the ownership and intellectual property value created by these activities.

Africa is participating in the digital economy, but too often as a customer rather than an owner of its underlying productive assets.

This distinction matters.

When we invest in a mine, a power plant or a manufacturing facility, we understand that ownership creates opportunities to generate returns, build domestic capabilities, develop supply chains and retain economic value.

Why should we think differently about the digital infrastructure that will increasingly underpin every one of these industries?

Cloud computing capacity, enterprise software, cybersecurity platforms and artificial intelligence infrastructure are becoming just as strategically important to modern economies as electricity, transportation and telecommunications.

They deserve comparable attention from our investment institutions.

The problem is not simply technological. It is financial.

For years, conversations about African technological independence have focused on digital policies, innovation hubs, entrepreneurship programmes and technical skills.

All are important. But they cannot substitute for the deliberate allocation of investment capital.

Technology platforms do not achieve meaningful scale through innovation alone. They require financing for product development, computing infrastructure, cybersecurity, talent acquisition, customer acquisition and expansion into new markets.

They also require patient investors prepared to support businesses through the difficult period between product development and commercial maturity.

Consider the scale of the opportunity.

McKinsey estimated in November 2025 that Africa's demand for data centre capacity could rise from approximately 0.4 gigawatts to between 1.5 and 2.2 gigawatts by 2030. Meeting that demand could require US$10–20 billion in new investment in data centre buildings alone, before equipment fit-out costs.

These are significant investment opportunities. Yet an expansion in physical capacity will not automatically translate into African ownership of that capacity, the software running on it or the economic value it produces.

The question is not only whether new infrastructure will be built.

It is who will finance it, who will own it, who will operate it and who will capture its long-term returns.

We have mobilised substantial amounts of capital for roads, mines, energy projects and other physical infrastructure. We have developed structures that bring together governments, institutional investors, development finance institutions and international partners to make large investments possible.

There is no fundamental reason why we cannot apply comparable financial sophistication to digital infrastructure.

What is missing is a sufficiently deliberate investment strategy.

Africa has capital. We need to change how we deploy it.

In January 2026, FSD Africa highlighted research showing that African pension funds and other institutional investment vehicles collectively manage more than US$600 billion in assets.

Yet much of this capital remains concentrated in government securities and traditional investment instruments, with relatively limited exposure to infrastructure, private equity and growing enterprises.

This is not an argument for pension funds to abandon their fiduciary responsibilities or indiscriminately invest retirement savings in risky technology startups.

It is an argument for developing investment structures that make African technology assets commercially investable.

Established data centres with contracted customers, for example, present a very different investment proposition from an early-stage software company developing a new product. One may be suitable for long-term infrastructure capital, while the other requires venture or growth equity that can absorb higher risk.

The distinction matters. We cannot finance every part of the digital economy using the same instruments.

African development finance institutions could play a catalytic role by providing project preparation capital, credit enhancement and appropriately structured risk-sharing facilities. Sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors could participate in commercially viable infrastructure and growth investment vehicles. Family offices and private equity firms could provide patient capital for emerging African technology champions.

Importantly, we should be building investment platforms capable of operating across multiple African markets.

A cloud services business or cybersecurity platform developed in Zambia should not have to depend on Zambia's domestic market alone to achieve scale. It should be able to serve customers in Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and beyond.

Our ambition must extend beyond national technology companies to globally competitive African enterprises.

Procurement may be as important as investment

There is another side to this challenge that deserves equal attention.

Capital alone will not build successful technology businesses if their potential customers are unwilling to purchase their products.

Across Africa, governments, banks, mining companies, telecommunications operators and other large institutions spend substantial amounts annually on software licences, digital services and technology infrastructure.

These expenditures represent something particularly valuable to emerging African technology companies: potential demand.

Imagine if a meaningful share of this spending were deliberately directed towards competitively selected African technology providers capable of meeting established standards for security, reliability and performance.

A local enterprise software company with a credible five-year contract from a major bank or public institution becomes considerably easier to finance than one relying on uncertain customer acquisition.

That contract creates recurring revenue, supports investment in technical capacity, improves bankability and provides a reference customer for expansion into other markets.

It is the same principle we understand in infrastructure development: a creditworthy long-term offtake arrangement can transform the financing prospects of an otherwise difficult project.

Why should technology be different?

This does not mean awarding contracts to local providers merely because they are local. Nor does it mean shielding African companies from competition.

It means creating genuine opportunities for capable African businesses to compete, prove themselves and achieve scale through transparent procurement, appropriate technical standards and predictable commercial arrangements.

We must also avoid replacing dependence on one global supplier with dependence on a single local supplier. True resilience requires competition, interoperability, independent backup systems and credible alternatives.

Technological sovereignty should mean having meaningful choices and the capacity to exercise them, not technological isolation.

From natural resources to digital assets

There is a particularly important opportunity here for resource-rich African economies such as Zambia.

We spend considerable time discussing how countries can move beyond exporting raw minerals towards building domestic processing and manufacturing industries.

That ambition is entirely justified. But value addition in the twenty-first century must also extend into the digital systems that increasingly govern industrial production, logistics, energy management and financial transactions.

Our mining industry depends on sophisticated software for geological interpretation, resource modelling, mine planning, equipment maintenance and production optimisation.

Our electricity sector increasingly requires digital platforms for generation forecasting, grid management, trading and energy storage optimisation.

Our agricultural sector needs accessible solutions for precision farming, weather intelligence, supply-chain management and market access.

These are not abstract technology opportunities. They are identifiable commercial markets with existing customers, operational problems and significant productivity requirements.

Why should we not develop and finance more African companies capable of solving these problems?

Consider the possibilities when African industrial capital is deliberately connected with African technology entrepreneurship.

Mining companies could become anchor customers for locally developed industrial software. Energy companies could support the development of African grid optimisation and electricity trading platforms. Financial institutions could procure cybersecurity and enterprise applications from regional providers that meet rigorous international standards.

Such arrangements would do more than substitute one supplier for another. They could create domestic intellectual property, develop technical expertise, generate export revenue and establish entirely new categories of African investment assets.

This is where industrial development and technological development must converge.

Building Africa's next generation of technology champions

I believe a credible African technology investment agenda must begin with three mutually reinforcing commitments.

First, we must treat critical digital infrastructure as an investable asset class. That means developing bankable pipelines of projects, combining appropriate equity and debt instruments, managing currency and commercial risks, and attracting institutional capital at a scale consistent with the opportunity.

Second, we must invest deliberately in African-owned intellectual property and technology platforms. Infrastructure ownership matters, but the long-term economic opportunity also lies in software, cybersecurity, industrial applications, data services and artificial intelligence solutions that can be developed locally and sold globally.

Third, we must connect investment with market access. African governments and corporations must recognise their purchasing power as an instrument for developing competitive domestic and regional industries, while maintaining procurement discipline and performance standards.

None of these commitments requires abandoning global technology providers.

International partnerships will remain essential. Foreign technology companies bring capabilities, research, financing and expertise from which African economies can benefit.

But our participation in those partnerships should increasingly extend beyond being customers and distributors.

We should seek opportunities to become investors, co-developers, operators, owners of intellectual property and exporters of technology.

That is how capabilities are built, how industries mature and how economic value is retained.

The investment question we can no longer avoid

The Microsoft outage will eventually become another entry in the history of global technology disruptions. Services will be restored, systems will be reviewed, and organisations will reconsider their business continuity arrangements.

But the structural questions it raises will remain.

For Africa, those questions extend well beyond whether we have adequate backup systems or contractual protection against service interruptions.

They go to the heart of the economic role we intend to play in an increasingly digital world.

Will we remain primarily a market for technologies developed and owned elsewhere? Or will we deliberately build the financing institutions, industrial capabilities and enterprises necessary to become meaningful owners of the digital economy?

This is fundamentally a choice about where we direct our capital.

I would challenge Africa's pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, development finance institutions, family offices and private investors to examine how much of their long-term portfolios is positioned to benefit from Africa's digital transformation, not simply through listed foreign technology stocks, but through productive investment in African technology infrastructure and enterprises.

If we can mobilise billions of dollars to finance roads, mines and power plants, why are we not mobilising comparable long-term capital to build the technological infrastructure of our future?

We have the entrepreneurs. We have expanding markets. We have industrial challenges demanding technological solutions. And we have growing pools of African investment capital.

The task is to connect them with greater purpose and commercial discipline.

Africa must move beyond consuming the digital revolution to financing, building, owning and exporting it.