In a major move that signals Africa’s growing role in global AI development, Orange announced yesterday that it will deploy OpenAI’s latest open-weight reasoning models, gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b, across its infrastructure, encompassing 18 countries on the continent.
Steve Jarrett, Chief AI Officer at Orange, said this technological breakthrough is set to redefine how AI is localised, trusted, and expanded with ethical oversight in Africa.
“This collaboration with OpenAI is foundational to our strategy of using state-of-the-art AI models that are both trusted and responsible. It drives new use cases across sensitive enterprise needs, smarter networks, and inclusive customer care solutions, in regional African languages,” he said.
Jarrett stressed that Orange's African operations, spanning nations such as Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Cameroon, and Egypt, will soon benefit from powerful AI systems tailored for local impact. “These models can now be deployed locally, thanks to Orange’s regional cloud and on-premise infrastructure, ensuring that sensitive data remains secure and compliant with local regulations,” stated Orange’s head of AI.
At the heart of this collaboration is a push for inclusion. The fourth-largest telecoms company in Africa by revenue and subscriber base plans to fine-tune OpenAI’s models to support African languages such as Wolof, Lingala, Swahili, and Hausa.
Brad Lightcap, COO at OpenAI, emphasised that this will enable natural conversations in local languages with AI-powered chatbots and voice assistants.
“From boosting network efficiency to improving African language support, Orange is delivering meaningful benefits directly to their customers,” he said.
Lightcap highlighted that the expected impact would be faster and more accurate customer service, even in rural areas where English or French is not the primary language.
Already, Orange’s Live Intelligence suite is being enhanced through these models, improving network diagnostics, reducing service outages, and cutting operational costs. Small businesses and enterprises across Africa will also gain access to bespoke AI tools, such as secure voice recognition and data analysis systems.
Orange plans to open-source these localised AI models for use by African governments in healthcare, education, and public services.
“By combining OpenAI’s global tech leadership with Orange’s deep roots in African telecom, this partnership could set a new standard for ethical, efficient, and locally relevant AI on the continent. We believe this is the blueprint for AI in Africa, responsible, inclusive, and built for real impact,” said Jarrett.
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