In an effort to improve Malawi's technological facilities and lessen dependency on services hosted abroad, Converged Technology Networks (CTN) has announced plans to build the Malawi's first Micro Data Centre (MDC) to support artificial intelligence (AI) computing.
According to Brian Longwe, co-founder and CEO of CTN, the initiative aims to develop local capability as AI becomes more and more integrated into Malawian public services, education, and industry.
Furthermore, Longwe said Malawi has long relied on data infrastructure hosted outside the country, which has limited local innovation and raised expenses for organisations that need a lot of processing capacity.
“If Malawi does not build its own capacity, we risk remaining only consumers of technology created elsewhere,” Longwe said.
Unlike traditional data centres that mainly host websites, email systems and business applications, CTN’s MDC will focus on high-performance computing designed to support AI workloads.
The company plans to install high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs), specifically NVIDIA A100 processors, in the coming months. The GPUs are widely used globally to power AI applications, particularly in processing large volumes of data and running machine learning models.
According to CTN, hosting such computing power locally will improve processing speed by keeping data traffic within Malawi, while potentially lowering operational costs for businesses and institutions that depend on AI technologies.
The company also emphasised the importance of data sovereignty, noting that sensitive financial, health and government data could be processed and stored within Malawi’s borders.
CTN says the facility will operate under a GPU-as-a-Service model, allowing organisations, developers and startups to rent computing power instead of investing in expensive hardware.
The initiative is also expected to support education and skills development through collaboration with Africa GPU Hub, which provides shared GPU infrastructure across several African countries, including South Africa and Nigeria.
Through the partnership, CTN plans to offer free GPU credits to Malawian AI scientists, students, data engineers and IT professionals to encourage hands-on training and research.
When Malawi’s GPU infrastructure becomes operational, CTN says it will contribute computing resources to the regional pool, potentially benefiting neighbouring countries.
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