Africa Tech Festival 2026 to Spotlight AI, Infrastructure and Africa’s Digital Future

Africa Tech Festival 2026 will put artificial intelligence, data centres, cloud infrastructure and connectivity at the centre of its programme when the 29th edition returns to Cape Town in November.

The festival will run at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from November 16 to 19, with the main exhibition and content programme taking place from November 17 to 19. Across those four days, the programme will cover AI, data centres and cloud, telecoms and connectivity, cybersecurity, startups and digital transformation, bringing the infrastructure behind Africa's digital services into the same conversation as the applications being built on top of it.

AI features prominently, with several sessions looking beyond adoption to the infrastructure and capabilities needed to build AI capacity in Africa. One of the headline discussions, “Beyond Adoption: What Will Make Africa an AI Producer, Not Just a Consumer?”, will examine what is required to develop stronger AI capabilities on the continent, including infrastructure, talent and capital, as well as the conditions needed for African organisations to participate more actively in the AI economy.

Another session, “The Agentic Enterprise: How AI Is Reshaping How Organisations Think, Decide and Act,” will turn to the enterprise side of the technology. It will examine where organisations are deploying AI agents, how those systems are changing decision-making and where businesses are seeing commercial returns.

Africa’s AI infrastructure

The infrastructure supporting those workloads gets its own place in the festival. Sessions on data centres and cloud infrastructure will examine the capacity being built to support growing demand for AI and other digital services, including new data centre capacity in African markets, hyperscaler partnerships and the growth of local compute.

The “Next Wave of AI Infrastructure Growth” panel will also touch on data sovereignty as organisations and governments consider where data is stored and processed. A separate session, “Mapping Out the Future of AI Infrastructure Investment,” will bring investors into discussions around infrastructure capital and examine factors including power availability, hyperscaler presence and expected enterprise AI demand.

Expanding data centre capacity requires more than computing equipment and cloud platforms. Electricity, network capacity and financing all have to be available, while operators also need enough enterprise demand to justify new capacity.

The networks connecting it all

The conversation then extends beyond the data centre to the networks that connect businesses and consumers to digital services. Africa Tech Festival's connectivity programme will cover fibre, 4G, 5G and satellite technology, with sessions examining fibre investment, network optimisation and the role of satellite connectivity in reaching underserved markets.

There is also a dedicated focus on the future of fibre, alongside discussions around telecom infrastructure and the expansion of digital access. Computing capacity can sit in a data centre, but businesses and consumers still need reliable connectivity to reach those services.

Cybersecurity will run alongside these discussions as another major programme area, with dedicated sessions covering security and the changing technology environment. Startups and digital transformation will have their own programming as well, widening the agenda beyond infrastructure to the companies and organisations using it.

Bringing the ecosystem together

Africa Tech Festival brings together companies and institutions across the technology ecosystem, including those building, funding and using digital infrastructure. The event is expected to attract telecom operators, technology companies, infrastructure providers, enterprise technology buyers, startups, investors, governments and regulators.

That mix is reflected in the wider agenda, which includes sessions for enterprise leaders, investment discussions, technology showcases and government-focused programming. Rather than separating infrastructure, investment and enterprise technology into unrelated conversations, the programme places them across the same four-day event.

Registration for Africa Tech Festival 2026 is open, with the main exhibition and content programme running from November 17 to 19. Register for Africa Tech Festival 2026.