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The AI build-out runs on copper and cobalt dug in central Africa. Yet Africa hosts less than 2 per cent of global data centre capacity, by one US agency's count. On 26 October a South African investor set out a plan that tests that pattern. INFRAGORA Global Capital wants to build two AI-ready data centres in Nigeria. It puts the cost at £485m to £746m ($650m to $1bn, €577m to €888m).
A 160 to 200 MW power plant would sit beside them, with an academy for AI skills. Financial close has not yet been reached. The plan bundles three of the steps this piece follows: power, compute and talent. The fourth step is the minerals themselves.
Congo mines 73 per cent of the world's cobalt, and China leads the refining
The US Geological Survey (USGS) puts Congo's 2025 cobalt output at 230,000 tonnes, 73 per cent of the world total. Indonesia was second, at 14 per cent. China remained the leading producer of refined cobalt, mainly for lithium-ion batteries.
Copper reads differently. Congo mined 3.2 million tonnes in 2025, second only to Chile. It refined 2.8 million tonnes at home. Zambia mined another 940,000 tonnes.
The build-out needs that copper. The International Energy Agency (IEA) puts copper at 10 to 15 per cent of transformer and power cable prices. Every data centre needs both, AI factories included. China's share of global copper smelting capacity rose from about 15 to 50 per cent between 2005 and 2025.
Cobalt prices rose about 130 per cent, largely on Congo's export curbs
Congo banned cobalt exports for a time in February 2025. In October it replaced the ban with quotas: up to 96,600 tonnes a year in 2026 and 2027. That includes 9,600 tonnes for strategic reserves. The IEA attributes a cobalt price rise of around 130 per cent largely to these restrictions. Its outlook now projects a cobalt supply gap.
Zimbabwe is moving the same way on lithium. It bans lithium concentrate exports from January 2027. On 9 October its information ministry said there is no justification for delaying the ban. The same report counts one lithium sulphate plant operating, at Arcadia.
Indonesia ran this test first. It banned nickel ore exports from January 2020, requiring nickel to be processed at home. The IEA now names Indonesia the top refining country for nickel. Virtually all recent growth in refined nickel came from it.
Energy and minerals sit at the base of the stack, and Africa thins out above it
Our five-layer read puts energy and raw inputs at the base. Compute, AI capability and economic output sit above. Africa is strong at the base and thin above it. In September we showed that sovereign AI is an energy policy. Here the question is narrower. Which step does a producing country climb first?
Where does Africa capture AI-era value first?
Africa's largest copper smelter runs at 60 per cent of its 500,000-tonne design
Ivanhoe Mines cast the first anodes at Kamoa-Kakula, in Congo, on 29 December 2025. It calls the 500,000-tonne-a-year plant Africa's largest copper smelter. With concentrate smelted on site, Ivanhoe expects logistics costs to approximately halve.
The smelter carries its own power. A 60 MW uninterruptible supply protects it from voltage fluctuations on the domestic grid. About 180 MW of diesel generation stands behind that. In the third quarter it produced 61,506 tonnes of copper in anode, of the complex's 76,401 tonnes of saleable copper. It still runs at about 60 per cent of design. A 60 MW solar plant now delivers continuous baseload power to the complex.
Processing is the costly step, and the same outlook prices it. Outside the dominant supplier, refining projects cost 20 to over 150 per cent more to build. Their operating costs run about 50 per cent higher.
INFRAGORA's Nigeria plan arrives with up to 200 MW of its own power
INFRAGORA's plant would run on gas and renewables with battery storage. It would supply the data centres' first 80 to 100 MW. The halls target Tier III+ or IV reliability, and construction is planned for 2027. The company has not disclosed its funding. Kiel Odiogo, its senior managing director, described "a sovereign-first hybrid approach". Sensitive data stays in local facilities, and public clouds take the elastic workloads.
TechCabal notes the project will run on American technology. Owning the building and controlling the platform are separate steps.
In South Africa, Cassava is deploying an AI factory on NVIDIA's platform. Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and Morocco are planned next. Ahmed El Beheiry, its group chief technology and AI officer, set out the aim. "Our goal is to give Africa the infrastructure to write its own future, using its own languages." Kasi, Raxio and Teraco are already climbing this step, as we showed in October.
A Google-commissioned study puts AI's upside for sub-Saharan Africa above £22bn
The demand side has a price. A study by Public First, commissioned by Google, found AI could add over £22bn ($30bn, €27bn) to the region's economy. Capturing it takes people trained to build and run AI services.
INFRAGORA's plan includes an academy for AI, machine learning and information security. It would train government staff, small businesses and young entrepreneurs. Talent is the one step no export rule can create.
Three questions decide which step a producing country climbs first
First, is there firm power at the site? Kamoa-Kakula and INFRAGORA both build their own.
Second, can processing compete on cost? Refining outside the dominant supplier starts at a capital and operating disadvantage.
Third, who runs the platform? A locally owned hall can still run imported software. The metallurgist, the grid engineer and the regulator answer each question site by site.
Quota volumes now set Congo's cobalt supply through 2027
Investors now read cobalt supply in the quota, not the ore body. Congo's quota caps what can leave the country through 2027. Every cobalt offtake now carries that exposure.
Price the power first, at every processing and compute site. A smelter and a data hall in Africa both bring their own generation. That cost sits inside the project, not beside it.
The bottom line
Congo mines most of the world's cobalt and already refines most of its own copper. Its export curbs largely drove a cobalt price rise of around 130 per cent. A copper smelter in Congo and a data centre plan in Nigeria each bring their own power. Each producing country is now testing which step of the value it keeps.
Next week: Regulated owners want AI to run inside their own estate. We show it running on Red Hat OpenShift.
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